ON  THE 


COSMIC  RELATION 


•Cooks  bp  ftcnrp  Ipolt 


CALMIRE.  Man  and  Nature.  Sixth  edition 
revised. 

STURMSEB.  Man  and  Man.  Third  edition  re- 
vised. 


ON  THE  COSMIC  RELATIONS,  a  volt. 

ON  THE  Civic  RELATIONS.  Being  a  third  edi- 
tion of  "  Talks  on  Civics  "  rewritten  from  the 
catechetical  into  the  expository  form,  and  re- 
vised and  enlarged. 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 


ON  THE  COSMIC  RELATIONS 

IN  TWO  VOLUMES 
VOL.  II 


ON  THE 
COSMIC  RELATIONS 


BY 

HENRY  HOLT 

l| 

VOLUME   II 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
CambriD0e 


COPYRIGHT,    1914,  BY  HENRY  HOLT 

Published  November  1914 
Reprinted  February,  1315 


CONTENTS— VOLUME  II. 


CHAPTER 

XXXIV. 

HODGSON'S   SECOND  PIPER  REPORT    (Con- 

PAGE 

tinued)  —  HODGSON'S  CONCLUSIONS 

513 

XXXV. 

PROFESSOR  NEWBOLD'S  REPORT  . 

531 

XXXVI. 

FARTHER  NEWBOLD  NOTES 

552 

XXXVII. 

PROFESSOR  HYSLOP'S  REPORT     . 

597 

XXXVIII. 

MR.     PIDDINGTON'S    REPORT    ON     MRS. 

THOMPSON         

602 

XXXIX. 

THE    THOMPSON-PIPER-JOSEPH    MARBLE 

SERIES        

629 

XL. 

THE  THOMPSON-MYERS  CONTROL     . 

637 

XLI. 

HETEROMATIC  SCRIPT:  MRS.  HOLLAND    . 

647 

XLIL 

HETEROMATIC  SCRIPT:  MRS.  VERRALL 

672 

XLIII. 

THE  PIPER-HODGSON  IN  AMERICA     . 

685 

XLIV. 

THE  PIPER-HODGSON  IN  AMERICA  (Con- 

tinued)        

713 

XLV. 

THE  HODGSON  CONTROL  IN  ENGLAND 

737 

XLVI. 

THE  ISAAC  THOMPSON  SERIES  IN  1906     . 

749 

XLVIL 

CROSS-CORRESPONDENCES     .... 

761 

XLVIII. 

THE  PIPER-MYERS  AND  THE  CLASSICS     . 

774 

XLIX. 

THE  PiPER-JuNOT  SITTINGS      .       .      :. 

785 

BOOK  III 

ATTEMPTS  AT  CORRELATION 

L. 

RELATIONS   OP   THE   MEDIUM'S   DREAMS 

WITH  OTHER  DREAMS     . 

830 

LI. 

THE  MAKING  OF  A  MEDIUM 

848 

LII. 

FINAL  GUESSES  REGARDING  POSSESSION   . 

864 

LIII. 

PROS  AND  CONS  OF  THE  SPIRITISTIC  HY- 

POTHESIS   .              

870 

LIV. 

THE  DREAM  LIFE                                   r. 

881 

LV. 

DREAMS  INDICATING  SURVIVAL  OF  DEATH 

914 

LVI. 

FINAL  SUMMARY  . 

931 

ON  THE  COSMIC  RELATIONS 
BOOK   II,  CONTINUED 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

HODGSON'S  SECOND  PIPER  REPORT,  1892-5  (Concluded) 
IV.  Hodgson's  Conclusions 

CARRYING  to  an  extreme  the  principle  that  half  a  loaf  is 
better  than  no  bread,  I  will  now  give  a  few  slices  and  some 
crumbs  from  Hodgson's  masterly  presentation  of  the  consid- 
erations which  led  him,  from  a  fuller  knowledge  than  has  yet 
been  possessed  by  all  other  men  put  together,  to  put  a  spirit- 
istic interpretation  on  Mrs.  Piper's  phenomena.  I  give  these 
extracts,  however,  with  considerable  reluctance,  because  they 
cannot  fall  far  short  of  being  a  positive  injustice  to  the  cause 
he  had  so  much  at  heart,  and  to  his  presentation  of  it.  To 
get  the  full  force  of  his  arguments  sometimes  requires  pretty 
hard  reading.  Occasionally,  to  facilitate  quotation,  I  trans- 
pose a  word  or  two,  or  bracket  in  a  phrase  unencumbered 
with  my  initials,  but  never  so  as  to  affect  the  sense. 

(Pr.XIII,323f.)  :  "  Thia  recognition  of  friends  appears  to  me 
to  be  of  great  importance  evidentially,  not  only  because  it  in- 
dicates some  supernormal  knowledge,  but  because,  when  all  the 
circumstances  are  taken  into  consideration,  they  seem  to  point, 
in  G.  P.'s  case,  to  an  independent  intelligence  drawing  upon  its 

own  recollections At  the  outset  of  the  communications  from 

G.  P.,  he  was  particularly  anxious — I  describe  it  as  it  seemed 
primd  facie  to  be — to  see  the  Howards  and  his  father  and 

mother  for  the  purpose  of  clearing  up  some  private  matters 

On  April  29th  came  tbe  explanation  from  G.  P.  about  the  diffi- 
culties involved  in  tbe  act  of  communicating,  and  I  believe  that 
I  emphasized  the  importance  of  his  always  recognizing  any 
friend  of  his  who  happened  to  attend  a  sitting,  no  matter  what 
other  communications  he  might  wish  to  make.  From  that  time 
onwards  he  has  never  failed  to  announce  himself  to,  and  to 
recognize,  with  the  appropriate  emotional  and  intellectual  rela- 
tions, the  sitters  who  were  known  to  G.  P.  living,  and  to  give 
their  names  in  one  form  or  another,  with  one  exception.  This 
exception,  however,  seems  to  me  to  be  as  noteworthy  as  if  the 

513 


514  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

recognition  had  been  complete. ...  At  Miss  Warner's  second  sit- 
ting . . .  January  7th,  1897  ...  G.  P.  asked  who  she  was.  I  said 
her  mother  was  a  special  friend  of  Mrs.  Howard. 

"  '  I  do  not  think  I  ever  knew  you  very  well.  (Very  little.  You 
used  to  come  and  see  my  mother.)  I  heard  of  you,  I  suppose. 
(I  saw  you  several  times.  You  used  to  come  with  Mr.  Rogers.) 
Yes,  I  remembered  about  Mr.  Rogers  when  I  saw  you  before. 
(Yes,  you  spoke  of  him.)  Yes,  but  I  cannot  seem  to  place  you. 
I  long  to  place  all  of  my  friends,  and  could  do  so  before  I  had 

been  gone  so  long.  You  see  I  am  farther  away 1  do  not 

recall  your  face.  You  must  have  changed (R.  H. :  Do  you 

remember  Mrs.  Warner?)  [Excitement  in  hand.]  Of  course, 
oh,  very  well.  For  pity  sake  are  you  her  little  daughter?  (Yes.) 
By  Jove,  how  you  have  grown. ...  I  though  so  much  of  your 
mother,  a  charming  woman.  (She  always  enjoyed  seeing  you,  I 
know.)  Our  tastes  were  similar  (about  writing?)  Yes. . . .  Ask 
her  if  she  remembers  the  book  I  gave  her  to  read.  (I  will.) 
And  ask  her  if  she  still  remembers  me  and  the  long  talks  we 
used  to  have  at  the  home  evenings.  (I  know  she  does.)  I  wish 
I  could  have  known  you  better,  it  would  have  been  so  nice  to 
have  recalled  the  past.  (I  was  a  little  girl).' 

"  [R.  H.]  The  very  non-recognition  seems  to  me  to  afford  an 
argument  in  favor  of  the  independent  existence  of  G.  P.,  as  con- 
trasted with  the  conception  of  some  secondary  personality  depend- 
ing for  its  knowledge  upon  the  minds  of  living  persons 

"  There  are  thirty  cases  of  true  recognition  [mine  may  make 
thirty-one.  H.H.]  out  of  at  least  one  hundred  and  fifty  persons 
who  have  had  sittings  with  Mrs.  Piper  since  the  first  appearance 
of  G.  P.,  and  no  case  of  false  recognition The  continual  man- 
ifestation of  this  personality, — so  different  from  Phinuit  or  other 
communicators, — with  its  own  reservoir  of  memories,  with  its 
swift  appreciation  of  any  reference  to  friends  of  G.  P.,  with  its 
'  give  and  take '  in  little  incidental  conversations  with  myself, 
has  helped  largely  in  producing  a  conviction  of  the  actual  pres- 
ence of  the  G.  P.  personality,  which  it  would  be  quite  impossible 
to  impart  by  any  mere  enumeration  of  verifiable  statements.  It 
will  hardly,  however,  be  regarded  as  surprising  that  the  most 
impressive  manifestations  are  at  the  same  time  the  most  subtle 
and  the  least  communicable." 

At  the  first  sitting  of  his  most  intimate  friends,  the  How- 
ards, on  April  11,  1892,  some  six  weeks  after  his  death  (Pr. 
XIII,  329f.), 

"  using  the  voice  directly,  he  showed  such  a  fullness  of  private 
remembrance  and  specific  knowledge  and  characteristic  intel- 
lectual and  emotional  quality  pertaining  to  G.  P.  that,  though 
they  had  previously  taken  no  interest  in  any  branch  of  psychical 
research,  they  were  unable  to  resist  the  conviction  that  they  were 


Ch.  XXXIV]     G.  P.  Acts  out  Intentions  when  Living       515 

actually  conversing  with  their  old  friend  G.  P.  And  this  convic- 
tion was  strengthened  by  their  later  experiences. ...  At  one  of 
his  early  communications  G.  P.  expressly  undertook  the  task  of 
rendering  all  the  assistance  in  his  power  towards  establishing 
the  continued  existence  of  himself  and  other  communicators,  in 
pursuance  of  a  promise  of  which  he  himself  [i.e.,  his  control? 
H.H.]  reminded  me,  made  some  two  years  or  more  before  his 
death,  that  if  he  died  before  me  and  found  himself  '  still  exist- 
ing,' he  would  devote  himself  to  prove  the  fact,  and  in  the  per- 
sistence of  his  endeavor  to  overcome  the  difficulties  in  communi- 
cating as  far  as  possible,  in  his  constant  readiness  to  act  as 
amanuensis  at  the  sittings,  in  the  effect  which  he  has  produced 
by  his  counsels,  to  myself  as  investigator,  and  to  numerous  other 
sitters  and  communicators,  he  has,  in  so  far  as  I  can  form  a 
judgment  in  a  problem  so  complex  and  still  presenting  so  much 
obscurity,  displayed  all  the  keenness  and  pertinacity  which  were 
eminently  characteristic  of  G.  P.  living. 

"  Finally,  the  manifestations  of  this  G.  P.  communicating 
frave  not  been  of  a  fitful  and  spasmodic  nature,  they  have  ex- 
hibited the  marks  of  a  continuous  living  and  persistent  person- 
ality, manifesting  itself  through  a  course  of  years,  and  showing 
the  same  characteristics  of  an  independent  intelligence  whether 
friends  of  G.  P.  were  present  at  the  sittings  or  not . . .  [From 
early  in  1892]  up  to  the  last  series  of  sittings  which  I  had  with 
Mrs.  Piper  (1896-7),  in  a  sitting  which  Evelyn  Howard  had  in 
November,  1896,  and  in  a  sitting  which  Mrs.  Howard  (just  then 
returned  to  America  after  between  three  and  four  years'  absence 
in  Europe)  had  since  my  departure  from  Boston  in  September, 
1897,  the  same  persistent  personality  has  manifested  itself,  and 
what  change  has  been  discernible  is  a  change  not  of  any  process 
of  disintegration,  but  rather  of  integration  and  evolution 

"  But  there  were  also  failures  [see  Pr.XIII,331f .]  which  do 
not,  however,  seem  to  me  to  afford  an  argument  against  the 
'  identity '  of  G.  P.  I  refer  to  prophecies  and  to  descriptions  of 
events  occurring  in  our  world  after  his  death,  and  to  attempts  to 

find  objects  that  were  lost Nor,  so  far  as  I  know,  is  there  any 

indication  in  these  groups  of  incidents  that  the  wrong  state- 
ments made  depended  telepathically  upon  the  expectations  of 
living  persons. 

"  There  is  another  type  of  incident  yet  [relating  to  the  doings 
of  absent  people.  H.H.]  where  G.  P.  made  at  least  two  notable 

failures  and  two  notable  successes These  incidents  point  to 

a  failure  of  supernormal  power  to  see  what  is  going  on  in  our 
world  as  we  see  it.  and  suggest  rather  some  form  of  perception  of 
scenes  in  the  subliminal  consciousness,  perhaps  of  telepathic  na- 
ture  On  the  whole  this  group  of  incidents  appears  to  me  to 

strengthen  the  evidence  pointing  to  G.  P.'s  '  identity.' " 

The  failures  were  with  average  friends;  the  successes  were 


516  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IY 

with  his  closest  friends  and  his  family.    Hodgson  very  prop- 
erly says  (Pr.  XIII,  335) : 

"That  Q.  P.  could  get  into  some  closer  relation  with  his 
father  and  the  Howards  than  with  Miss  M.  or  myself  is  intelligi- 
ble; but  it  is  not  so  obvious  why  Mrs.  Piper's  secondary  person- 
ality should 

"G.  P.  seemed  to  be  able  to  distinguish  much  better  than 
Phinuit  which  communicators  were  friends  of  a  sitter,  and  which 
were,  for  the  time  being,  outsiders,  and  he  \f6uld,  as  it  appeared, 
sometimes  tell  such  outsiders  to  go  away  and  not  interrupt,  and 
at  other  times  make  it  clear  that  they  were  not  connected  with 
the  sitter,  and  would  give  their  messages  in  an  '  aside,'  as  it 
were,  to  me." 

(Pr.XIII,341f.) :  "  I  know  of  several  instances  where  other 
communicators  have  had  the  opportunity  of  frequent  communi- 
cation through  Mrs.  Piper's  trance  during  a  course  of  several 
years,  and  at  many  of  these  sittings  I  have  been  present.  The^ 
have  strengthened  my  conviction  that  primarily  depended  upon 
the  communications  from  G.  P.,  but  the  sitters  regard  them  as 
too  personal  for  publication.  The  best  things  can  obviously  never 
or  very  seldom  be  reproduced ;  if  they  could  be,  they  would  prove 
themselves,  by  that  very  fact,  to  fall  short  of  being  the  most 
convincing.  And  hence  all  one  can  offer  is  a  few  dry  bones  in- 
stead of  a  living  and  breathing  personality,  to  use  the  words  of 
the  lady  who  prepared  the  following  account.  I  shall  call  her 
Mrs.  M 

" '  It  is  very  difficult  for  me  to  explain — as  Mr.  Hodgson  has 
requested  me  to — just  what  general  effect  the  "  sittings  "  have 
made  on  my  mind.  If  I  had  never  had  a  "  sitting  "  with  Mrs. 
Piper,  and  this  report  had  been  written  by  someone  else,  I  am 
sure  I  should  say :  "  There's  not  enough  evidence  here  to  prove 
that  the  living  personality  of  the  man  called  Roland  ever  reached 
his  wife  through  Mrs.  Piper's  '  mediumship ' ;  there  is  little 
beside  coincidence,  suggestions  unconsciously  made  by  the  sitter 
to  Mrs.  Piper  during  the  highly  susceptible  condition  of  her 
trance  state,  incidents  that  can  be  fully  explained  by  thought- 
transference  from  living  persons,"  etc.,  etc.  I  am  quite  sure  I 
should  never  be  convinced  by  any  such  report  as  this  of  the 
reality  of  "  spirit  return."  Yet  I  am  convinced  of  it,  but  it  is 
because  there  is  much  in  my  "  sittings "  which  might  help  to 
convince  a  stranger,  which  is  of  too  personal  a  nature  to  quote, 
and  perhaps  the  most  convincing  thing  is  the  accumulation  of 
little  touches  of  personality  which  make  the  "  sittings  "  so  real 
to  me,  but  which  it  would  be  almost  impossible  to  reproduce  in 
print.  Peculiarities  of  expression  in  the  writing  and  of  manner 
in  that  wonderfully  dramatic  hand  of  Mrs.  Piper's.  Anyone  who 
has  had  a  good  sitting  with  Mrs.  Piper  will  know  exactly  what 
I  mean.  One  feels  the  hand  is  alive  with  a  distinct  personality 


Ch.  XXXIV]   Hart's  Prompt  Manifestation  517. 

very  different  from  "  Phinuit "  (who  has  "  controlled  "  the  voice 
in  all  my  sittings).  The  behavior  of  the  hand  when  it  is  con- 
trolled by  my  husband  or  my  brother  is  as  distinct  and  as  charac- 
teristic of  the  two  men  as  anything  of  the  kind  could  possibly  be. 
" '  There  is  a  great  difference  in  the  quality  of  the  sittings ;  at 
some  of  them  no  irrelevant  matter  would  be  written,  and  at 
others  much  which  sounded,  as  I  have  before  said,  like  the  odd 
scraps  of  conversation  one  might  hear  over  a  telephone  wire.  I 
have  generally  found  that  the  poor  sittings  were  on  days  when 
either  Mrs.  Piper  or  I  was  not  up  to  our  normal  physical  condi- 
tion.' " 

Was  all  the  dramatic  arrangement  of  the  following  a  put-up 
job  ?  If  it  was,  who  was  the  great  dramatist  that  did  it  ?  If 
it  was  not,  what  was  it  ?  Hodgson  writes : 

(Pr.Xni,353f.) :  "  The  friend  whom  I  have  called  Mr.  Hart, 
to  whom  in  the  first  instance  G.  P.  manifested  [in  1892.  H.H.] 
. . .  died  in  Naples  on  May  2nd,  1895. ...  I  heard  incidentally  on 
May  3rd  [of]  the  death  of  Hart.  My  assistant  Miss  Edmunds 
went  out  to  Mrs.  Piper  at  my  request  to  arrange  a  sitting  for  me 

for  the  next  day I  did  not  tell  Miss  Edmunds  the  reason,  and 

she  made  a  totally  erroneous  conjecture  concerning  it.  The  an- 
nouncement of  the  death  however,  with  the  place,  and  cause  of 
death  (inflammation  of  the  heart),  appeared  in  a  Boston  evening 
paper  on  May  3rd.  At  the  sitting  on  May  4th,  after  a  few  words 
from  Phinuit,  G.  P.  wrote  and  gave  several  messages  from 
friends,  and  then  asked  what  he  could  do  for  me.  I  replied  that 
I  had  something  for  him  to  do,  but  could  not  tell  him  what  it 
was.  He  made  a  brief  reference  to  his  father  and  mother,  and 
then  to  a  friend  of  my  own,  and  then  came  the  following : — 

"  *  Hold,  H.  See  all  of  these  people  bringing  a  gentleman. 
[R.  H.  thinks  this  is  unintentionally  written,  and  doesn't  repeat 
the  words  aloud.] 

" '  Read ...  do  you  see  them,  H.  ?  (No.)  He  is  coming  here. 
I  think  I  knew  him.  [R.  H.  can't  decipher  after  think.']  That 
I  knew  him.  Come  here  and  listen,  H.  He  has  been  here  before 
and  I  have  seen  him  since  I  passed  out.  (Who  is  it?)  John. 
"  Do  you  see  me,  H.? "  He  says  this.  (No.)  "  What  about  my 
health,  Oh  George,  I  am  here,  do  not  go  away  from  me," . . .  not 
to  you,  H.,  to  me.  (Yes,  I  understand.)  "  I  thought  I  should 
see  you  once  more  before  I  came  here."  (What  is  the  full 
name?)  John  H.  (Give  me  the  second  name  in  full.)  Did  you 
speak?  (Write  the  second  name  in  full.)  Hart.  (That's  right, 
Hart,  old  fellow.)  "  Will  you  listen  to  me,  Hodg [Much  ex- 
citement in  hand,  and  letters  jumbled  over.  G.  P.  writing 
throughout,  but  at  times  apparently  much  perturbation  intro- 
duced.] George  knew  I  was  here  and  met  me  but  I  was  too  weak 
to  come  here  and  talk  H."  . . .  Yes,  H.,  but  the  dear  old  fellow  is 
short  breathed. ..."  I  expected  to  see  you  before  I  came  here,  H. 


518  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

(Yes,  I  hoped  to  have  met  you  in  the  body  again)  but  you  see  I 
was  failing.  How  are  you?"  What  [apparently  from  G.  P.  to 

Hart.]    "  I  brought  Ge here  first 1  am  a  little  dull,  H., 

in  my  head."  (Isn't  the  light  good  to-day?)  Yes,  but  it  is  I, 
H.,  my  (you  mean  you  are  not  in  good  trim,  George  ?)  No  no  I 
Hart  no,  H.  I  Hart  (I  see,  Hart  is  dull,  Hart  can't  do  so  well.) 
[H.  is  the  initial  of  Hart's  real  name.  1898.  This  date,  often 
repeated,  is  of  additional  annotations  made  shortly  before  pub- 
lication. H.H.]  [Thump  with  fist.  Much  thumping  with  fist 
during  sitting  indicative  of  assent  at  different  times.]  . . .  Will 
they  send  my  body  on  to  New  York?  (I  don't  know.)  I  hope 
they  will.  They  are  now  talking  about  it."  [I  learned  later  that 
the  desirability  of  taking  the  body  to  America  was  discussed.]  ' 
"  When  I  asked,  '  Why  didn't  George  tell  me  to  begin  with  ? ' 
he  replied,  '  because  I  told  him  to  let  me  come  and  tell  myself.' 
This  was  like  Hart,  and  so  was  the  statement  quoted  above  that 
it  was  he  who  brought  G.  P.  first." 

It  will  be  remembered  that  G.  P.  first  appeared  to  Hart  as 
sitter.  It  is  worth  noting  that  as  G.  P.  had  in  the  "other 
world  "  no  intimate  friend  in  the  habit  of  communicating,  it 
took  a  month  to  put  in  an  appearance  here  through  Phinuit, 
but  Hart,  on  arriving  there,  at  once  communicated  through  hi8 
intimate  friend,  the  practised  communicator  G.  P.,  to  his  other 
intimate  friend  Hodgson,  and  apparently  was  enabled  or  as- 
sisted by  G.  P.,  to  communicate  himself.  This  fits  in  with 
the  general  drift  of  suggestion.  In  time  we  may  know  what 
weight  to  attach  to  it.  It  certainly  raises  the  sort  of  pre- 
sumption that  invites  a  faith  that  the  "  evidential "  difficulties 
will  sometime  be  explained.  Hodgson  resumes : 

(Pr.XIII,357f.) :  "  In  my  previous  report  on  Mrs.  Piper's 
trance  (Proceedings,  Vol.  VIII)  in  discussing  the  claims  of 
Phinuit  to  be  a  '  spirit '  and  to  be  in  communication  with  the 
'deceased'  friends  of  sitters,  I  urged  that  there  were  almost 
insuperable  objections  to  the  supposition  that  such  '  deceased ' 
persons  were  in  direct  communication  with  Phinuit,  at  least  in 

anything   like   the  fullness  of  their  personality I  am  now 

fully  convinced  that  there  has  been  such  actual  communication 
through  Mrs.  Piper's  trance,  but  that  the  communication  has 
been  subject  to  certain  unavoidable  limitations,  the  general  na- 
ture of  which  I  shall  shortly  indicate. . . .  With  the  advent  of  the 
G.  P.  intelligence,  the  development  of  the  automatic  writing,  and 
the  use  of  the  hand  by  scores  of  other  alleged  communicators, 
the  problem  has  assumed  a  very  different  aspect.  The  dramatic 
form  has  become  an  integral  part  of  the  phenomenon.  With  the 
hand  writing  and  the  voice  speaking  at  the  same  time  on  differ- 


Ch.  XXXIV]   Distinctness  and  Continuity  of  Controls    519 

ent  subjects  and  with  different  persons,  with  the  hand  writing  or. 
behalf  of  different  communicators  at  the  same  sitting,  with  dif- 
ferent successive  communicators  using  the  hand  at  the  same  sit- 
ting, as  well  as  at  different  sittings,  it  is  difficult  to  resist  the 
impression  that  there  are  here  actually  concerned  various  differ- 
ent and  distinct  and  individually  coherent  streams  of  conscious- 
ness. To  the  person  unfamiliar  with  a  series  of  these  later  sit- 
tings, it  may  seem  a  plausible  hypothesis  that  perhaps  one  sec- 
ondary personality  might  do  the  whole  work,  might  use  the  voice 
and  write  contemporaneously  with  the  hand.  ["  If  you  believe 
that,  you'll  believe  anything."  H.H.]  ...  I  do  not,  however,  think 
it  at  all  likely  that  he  would  continue  to  think  it  plausible  after 
witnessing  and  studying  the  numerous  coherent  groups  of  mem- 
ories connected  with  different  persons,  the  characteristic  emo- 
tional tendencies  distinguishing  such  different  persons,  the  ex- 
cessive complication  of  the  acting  required,  and  the  absence  of 
any  apparent  bond  of  union  for  the  associated  thoughts  and 
feelings  indicative  of  each  individuality,  save  some  persistent 
basis  of  that  individuality  itself." 

(Pr.XIII,360)  :  "  I  do  not  find  any  evidence  tending  to  show 
that  the  bond  of  continuity  in  the  case  of  the  most  successful 
communicators  depends  for  its  existence  upon  the  minds  of  liv- 
ing persons The  mixtures  of  truth  and  error  bear  no  discern- 
ible relation  to  the  consciousness  of  the  sitters,  but  suggest  the 
action  of  another  intelligence  groping  confusedly  among  its  own 
remembrances.  And  as  further  light  appears  in  this  confused 
groping,  the  bonds  of  association  appear  more  and  more  to  be 
traceable  to  no  other  assignable  personality  than  that  of  the  de- 
ceased. It  is  not  this  or  that  isolated  piece  of  private  knowledge 
merely,  not  merely  this  or  that  supernormal  perception  of  an 
event  occurring  elsewhere,  not  merely  this  or  that  subtle  emo- 
tional appreciation  for  a  distant  living  friend, — but  the  union 
of  all  these  in  a  coherent  personal  plan  with  responsive  intellect 
and  character  [Italics  mine.  H.H.]  that  suggests  the  specific 
identity  once  known  to  us  in  a  body  incarnate." 

(Pr.XIII,361f .)  :  "  « Why,'  they  [objectors]  will  say,  '  if  dis- 
carnate  persons  are  really  communicating,  do  they  not  give  us 
much  more  evidence  ?...  Take  the  communications  as  a  whole, 
and  we  find  them  coming  very  far  short  indeed  of  what  we 
should  expect  from  the  real  friends  who  once  lived  with  us.' 

"  It  may  well  be  that  the  aptitude  for  communicating  clearly 
may  be  as  rare  as  the  gifts  that  make  a  great  artist,  or  a  great 
mathematician,  or  a  great  philosopher.  [Why  not  a 
great  medium  ?  H.H.]  ...  It  may  well  be  that,  owing  to 
the  change  connected  with  death  itself,  the  '  spirit ' 
may  at  first  be  much  confused,  and  such  confusion  may  last  for 

a  long  time If  my  own  ordinary  body  could  be  preserved  in 

its  present  state,  and  I  could  absent  myself  from  it  for  days  or 
months  or  years,  and  continue  my  existence  under  another  set 


520  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

of  conditions  altogether,  and  if  I  could  then  return  to  my  own 
body,  it  might  well  be  that  I  should  be  very  confused  and  in- 
coherent at  first  in  my  manifestations  by  means  of  it.  How 
much  more  would  this  be  the  case  were  I  to  return  to  another 
human  body. . . .  Now  the  communicators  through  Mrs.  Piper's 
trance  exhibit  precisely  the  kind  of  confusion  and  incoherence 
which  it  seems  to  me  we  have  some  reason  a  priori  to  expect  if 
they  are  actually  what  they  claim  to  be.  And  G.  P.  himself 
appeared  to  be  well  aware  of  this.  Thus  he  wrote  on  February 
15th,  1894:— 

" '  Remember  we  share  and  always  shall  have  our  friends  in 
the  dream-life,  i.e.,  your  life  so  to  speak,  which  will  attract  us 
forever  and  ever,  and  so  long  as  we  have  any  friends  sleeping  in 
the  material  world; — you  to  us  are  more  like  as  we  understand 
sleep,  you  look  shut  up  as  one  in  prison,  and  in  order  for  us  to 
get  into  communication  with  you,  we  have  to  enter  into  your 
sphere,  as  one  like  yourself  asleep.  [Is  this  the  twaddle  that  so 
many  friends  say  G.  P.  could  not  have  talked?  H.H.]  This  is 
just  why  we  make  mistakes  as  you  call  them,  or  get  confused 
and  muddled,  so  to  put  it,  H.  [R.  H.  repeats  in  his  own  lan- 
guage.] Your  thoughts  do  grasp  mine.  Well  now  you  have  just 
what  I  have  been  wanting  to  come  and  make  clear  to  you,  H.,  old 
fellow.  (It  is  quite  clear.)  Yes,  you  see  I  am  more  awake  than 
asleep,  yet  I  cannot  come  just  as  I  am  in  reality,  independently 
of  the  medium's  light.  (You  come  much  better  than  the  others.) 
Yes,  because  I  am  a  little  nearer  and  not  less  intelligent  than 
some  others  here.' " 

(Pr.XIII,37lf .)  :  "  The  complex  mass  of  manifestations  falls 
into  systematic  order  if  we  relate  them  to  the  supposed  still  ex- 
isting personalities  of  the  dead,  and  they  fall  into  no  systematic 
order  in  relation  to  the  consciousnesses  of  the  living.  There  are 
perturbations  in  the  results  which  vary  according  to  the  invisible 
personalities  who  claim  to  be  there,  and  not  according  to  visible 
liring  persons 

"  The  sitter  who  hopes  for  a  communication  from  a  '  deceased ' 
friend  can  scarcely  expect  to  get  it  unless  his  thoughts  and  emo- 
tions are  directed  towards  that  friend  with  longing  sympathy. 
[I  got  at  least  the  semblance  without  any  thought  of  who  was 
to  communicate,  and  shut  off  any  communication  that  threat- 
ened to  come  from  anyone  specially  dear  to  me.  But  perhaps  I 
did  not  need  any  '  longing  sympathy,'  as  Phinuit  says  I  am  a 
medium.  H.H.]  It  may  well  be  supposed  that  such  a  friend 
though  living  in  '  another  world '  may  be  conscious  of  such  an 
appeal,  but  it  would  be  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  the  '  dead ' 
are  perpetually  waiting  upon  the  living,  whether  the  latter  are 
longing  for  their  presence  or  not.  And  it  may  even  be  that  the 
state  of  mind  of  some  persons  is  actually  repellent  to  the  efforts 
which  their  '  deceased '  friends  make  to  communicate,  as  I  have 
•witnessed,  I  believe,  on  more  than  one  occasion 


Ch.  XXXIV]       Controls  not  in  Sitters'  Minds  521 

"  There  are  of  course  many  cases  where  communicators  appear 
who  were  not  in  the  conscious  minds  of  the  sitters,  and  these 
taken  together  point  as  a  group  to  the  existence  of  independent 
intelligences. . . .  [Once  as]  Mrs.  Piper  was  coming  out  of  the 
trance,  the  voice  shouted  excitedly, '  Tell  Aleck  Bousser  [pseudo- 
nym] . . .  not  to  leave  them  alone.'  Miss  Edmunds  [the  sitter] 
knew  nothing  of  Aleck  Bousser,  but  he  was  well-known  to  me. . . . 
I  sent  the  message  immediately  to  A.  B.,  and  received  the  follow- 
ing reply: — 

" '  There  certainly  do  happen  to  be  some  people  I  just  was  hap- 
pening to  have  been  debating  about  in  my  own  mind  in  a  way 
that  makes  your  short  message  perfectly  significant  and  natural. 
I  am  sorry  thus  to  be  obliged  to  feed  your  credulity,  for  I  hate 
your  spirits.' 

" That  Madame  Elisa  should  select  some  significant  cir- 
cumstance in  connection  with  living  friends  or  relatives  is  in- 
telligible ;  but  to  suppose  that  a  fragment  of  Mrs.  Piper's  person- 
ality selects  it  is  not  intelligible, — it  is  not  explanatory,  and 
suggests  no  order." 

Of  confused  communications  from  persons  who  had  had 
long  illnesses  or  disordered  minds,  he  says  (Pr.  XIII,  375f.) : 

"To  suppose  that  the  mass  of  facts  associated  in  my  mind, 
Bupraliminal  and  subliminal,  with  A.,  and  bound  by  strong  sym- 
pathy, should  result  in  incoherencies  of  expression  from  '  A.' 
when  contemporary  communications  from  other  persons  were 
clear,  is  not  explanatory.  The  circumstances  suggest  a  confu- 
sion in  the  actual  communicator  A.,  and  when  we  remember  that 
his  head  frequently  troubled  him  for  some  years  before  his  death, 
and  when  we  find  a  similar  confusion  manifesting  itself  in  con- 
nection with  other  communicators  who  suffered  for  a  long  time 
under  confusing  bodily  conditions,  the  facts  begin  to  fall  into 

order Prolonged  bodily  disturbance,  especially  if  associated 

with  mental  disturbance,  in  the  communicator  while  living, 
seems  invariably  to  be  followed  by  confusion  in  his  early  attempts 
at  communication 

"In  all  these  cases  the  confusion  persisted  through  varying 
conditions  of  Mrs.  Piper's  trance,  and  while  clear  communica- 
tions were  received  from  other  persons;  and  yet,  so  far  as  the 
sitters'  minds  were  concerned,  there  seemed  no  assignable  reason 
why  the  communications  were  not  clear  originally,  or  did  not 

soon  become  clear,  if  dependent  upon  living  persons We  get 

all  varieties  of  communication;  some  of  them,  purporting  to 
come  from  persons  who  when  living  were  much  mentally  dis- 
turbed, suggesting  the  incoherency  of  delirium ;  others  of  them, 
purporting  to  come  from  persons  who  have  been  dead  very  many 
years,  suggesting  a  fainter  dreaminess;  others,  purporting  to 
come  from  persons  recently  deceased  whose  minds  have  been 
clear,  showing  a  corresponding  clearness  in  communication. . . . 


522  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

My  own  conclusion  as  to  what  might  be  anticipated  in  such 
cases,  where  the  communicators  when  living  suffered  from  pro- 
longed bodily  weakness  or  extreme  mental  disturbance,  is  a  late 
induction  of  my  own,  forced  upon  me  by  experience,  and 
strengthened  by  various  statements  of  the  communicators  them- 
selves concerning  the  causes  of  confusion." 

(Pr.XIII,377f.)  :  "  Again,  that  persons  just  'deceased'  should 
be  extremely  confused  and  unable  to  communicate  directly,  or 
even  at  all,  seems  perfectly  natural  after  the  shock  and  wrench 
of  death.  Thus  in  the  case  of  Hart  (p.  517),  he  was  unable  to 
write  the  second  day  after  death.  In  another  case  (Pr.XIII,440) 
a  friend  of  mine,  whom  I  may  call  D.,  wrote,  with  what  appeared 
to  be  much  difficulty,  his  name  and  the  words,  '  I  am  all  right 
now.  Adieu,'  within  two  or  three  days  of  his  death.  In  another 
case,  F.,  a  near  relative  of  Madame  Elisa  (Pr.XIII,335),  was 
unable  to  write  on  the  morning  after  his  death.1  On  the  second 
day  after,  when  a  stranger  was  present  with  me  for  a  sitting,  he 
wrote  two  or  three  sentences,  saying,  '  I  am  too  weak  to  articu- 
late clearly,'  and  not  many  days  later  he  wrote  fairly  well  and 
clearly,  and  dictated  also  to  Madame  Elisa,  as  amanuensis,  an 
account  of  his  feelings  at  finding  himself  in  his  new  surround- 
ings. Both  D.  and  F.  became  very  clear  in  a  short  time.  D.  com- 
municated later  on  frequently,  both  by  writing  and  speech,  chiefly 
the  latter,  and  showed  always  an  impressively  marked  and  char- 
acteristic personality.  Hart,  on  the  other  hand,  did  not  become 
so  clear  till  many  months  later.  I  learned  long  afterwards  that 
his  illness  had  been  much  longer  and  more  fundamental  than  I 
had  supposed. 

" *  [NOTE.] — The  notice  of  his  death  was  in  a  Boston  morning 
paper,  and  I  happened  to  see  it  on  my  way  to  the  sitting.  The 
first  writing  of  the  sitting  came  from  Madame  Elisa,  without  my 
expecting  it.  She  wrote  clearly  and  strongly,  explaining  that 
F.  was  there  with  her,  but  unable  to  speak  directly,  that  she 
wished  to  give  me  an  account  of  how  she  had  helped  F.  to  reach 
her.  She  said  that  she  had  been  present  at  his  death-bed,  and 
had  spoken  to  him,  and  she  repeated  what  she  had  said,  an  un- 
usual form  of  expression,  and  indicated  that  he  had  heard  and 
recognized  her.  This  was  confirmed  in  detail  in  the  only  way 
possible  at  that  time,  by  a  very  intimate  friend  of  Madame  Elisa 
and  myself,  and  also  of  the  nearest  surviving  relative  of  F.  I 
showed  my  friend  the  account  of  the  sitting,  and  to  this  friend, 
a  day  or  two  later,  the  relative,  who  was  present  at  the  death- 
bed, stated  spontaneously  that  F.  when  dying  said  that  he  saw 
Madame  Elisa  who  was  speaking  to  him,  and  he  repeated  what 
she  was  saying.  The  expression  so  repeated,  which  the  relative 
quoted  to  my  friend,  was  that  which  I  had  received  from  Madame 
Elisa  through  Mrs.  Piper's  trance,  when  the  death-bed  incident 
was  of  course  entirely  unknown  to  me." 

(Pr.XHE,380) :  "  There  is  often  a  confusion  in  result  which 


Ch.  XXXIV]   Confusions.    Children  Clear.    Surnames    523 

is  not  the  confusion  of  the  communicator's  mind. . . .  Thus  when 
'Mrs.  Mitchell'  was  requested  to  repeat  words  which  we  had 
difficulty  in  deciphering,  she  wrote: — 

" '  No,  I  can't,  it  is  too  much  work  and  too  weakening,  and  I 
cannot  repeat — you  must  help  me  and  I  will  prove  myself  to 
you.  I  cannot  collect  my  thoughts  to  repeat  sentences  to  you. 
My  darling  husband,  I  am  not  away  from  you,  but  right  by  your 
side.  Welcome  me  as  you  would  if  I  were  with  you  in  the  flesh 
and  blood  body.  [Sitter  asks  for  test.]  ...  I  cannot  tell  myself 
just  how  you  hear  me,  and  it  bothers  me  a  little . . .  how  do  you 
hear  me  speak,  dear,  when  we  speak  by  thought  only  ?  But  your 
thoughts  do  not  reach  me  at  all  when  I  am  speaking  to  you,  but 
I  hear  a  strange  sound  and  have  to  half  guess.' 

"  [H.]  Of  such  confusions  as  I  have  indicated  above  I  cannot 
find  any  satisfactory  explanation  in  '  telepathy  from  the  living,' 
but  they  fall  into  a  rational  order  when  related  to  the  personali- 
ties of  the  '  dead.' " 

(Pr.XIII,382f.) :  "  Much  light  seems  to  me  to  have  been 
thrown  upon  Phinuit's  mistakes  and  obscurities  and  general 
method  of  trying  to  get  at  facts,  in  what  were  on  the  whole  bad 
sittings,  by  comparison  of  the  results  obtained  from  the  various 
communicators  writing  directly  or  using  G.  P.  as  amanuensis; 
and  I  feel  pretty  sure  that  much  of  Phinuit's  '  fishing '  was  due 
to  the  confusions  of  the  more  or  less  comatose  communicators 
whose  minds  had  let  loose,  so  to  speak,  a  crowd  of  earthly  mem- 
ories. And  in  cases  where  we  should  a  priori  be  led  to  expect 
that  the  communicators  would  certainly  not  be  confused,  or,  if 
they  were  confused,  the  confusion  would  not  make  much  differ- 
ence, Phinuit  was  particularly  successful.  These  cases,  in  which 
there  was  also  a  little  direct  communication  with  the  voice,  seem 
to  me  to  afford  a  special  argument  in  themselves  in  favor  of  the 
'  spirit '  hypothesis.  They  may  be  contrasted  with  the  type  of 
extreme  failures  which  I  have  connected  with  chronic  morbid 
habits  or  disruptive  dominant  ideas.  The  cases  I  refer  to  are 
those  of  little  children  recently  deceased." 

This  seems  to  me  a  very  strong  point.  Its  force  will  be 
realized  by  most  of  those  who  read  the  Sutton  and  Thaw  sit- 
tings. Phinuit,  "the  preposterous  old  scoundrel,"  is  emi- 
nently "  the  children's  friend." 

(Pr.XTII,390) :  "  In  very  good  sittings  of  the  old  type,  the 
sitter's  surname  was  rarely  given.  What  is  it,  then,  that  in  the 
G.  P.  communications  happened  to  give  the  surnames  of  the 
particular  group  of  persons  known  to  G.  P.?  What  is  it  that 
selected  the  thirty  persons  recognized  as  G.  P.'s  friends  and 
knew  their  appropriate  relations  with  G.  P.  living?  Why  should 
the  supposed  Mrs.  Piper's  telepathic  power  succeed  so  strangely 
with  these  G.  P.  recognitions,  and  be  so  failing  and  uncertain  in 


524  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

the  case  of  so  many  persons  who  happened  to  be  unknown  to 
G.  P.  living?  What  was  it  that  picked  out  the  old  associations 
of  Marte  and  the  club  with  Mr.  Smith,  and  yet,  with  all  this 
supposed  telepathic  capacity  failed  to  recognize  Miss  Warner, 
who  had  changed  so  much  that  G.  P.  living  would  probably  not 
have  recognized  her,  but  who  knew  well  herself,  as  I  did  also, 
that  she  had  met  G.  P.  in  years  gone  by  ? ...  It  suggests  the  ex- 
istence of  something  which  has  the  perceptions  and  memories  of 
G.  P. . . .  Otherwise  we  must  make  some  such  extraordinary  sup- 
position as  that  all  G.  P.'s  friends  were  good  telepathic  agents 
with  Mrs.  Piper  as  percipient,  and  . . .  that  they  showed  this  united 
telepathic  capacity  only  as  regards  their  relations  with  G.  P." 

(Pr.XIII,367)  :  "  It  will  be  obvious,  I  think,  upon  such  con- 
siderations as  these,  and  similar  ones,  that  the  confusion  and 
failure  which  we  find  in  Mrs.  Piper's  trance  communications, 
are  so  far  from  being  what  we  should  not  expect,  that  they  are 
exactly  what  we  should  expect,  if  the  alleged  spirits  are  com- 
municating." 

Hodgson,  sums  up  his  conclusions  as  follows  (Pr.  XIII, 
391f.)  : 

"  The  persistent  failures  of  many  communicators  under  vary- 
ing conditions;  the  first  failures  of  other  communicators  who 
soon  develop  into  clearness  in  communicating,  and  whose  first 
attempts  apparently  can  be  made  much  clearer  by  the  assistance 
of  persons  professing  to  be  experienced  communicators ;  the  spe- 
cial bewilderment,  soon  to  disappear,  of  communicators  shortly 
after  death  and  apparently  in  consequence  of  it;  the  character 
of  the  specific  mental  automatisms  manifest  in  the  communica- 
tions; the  clearness  of  remembrance  in  little  children  recently 
deceased  as  contrasted  with  the  forgetfulness  of  childish  things 
shown  by. communicators  who  died  when  children  many  years 
before, — all  present  a  definite  relation  to  the  personalities  alleged 
to  be  communicating,  and  are  exactly  what  we  should  expect  if 
they  are  actually  communicating  under  the  conditions  of  Mrs. 
Piper's  trance  manifestations.  The  results  fit  the  claim. 

"  On  the  other  hand  these  are  not  the  results  which  we  should 
expect  on  the  hypothesis  of  telepathy  from  the  living.  That 
persons  who  must  be  assumed  on  this  hypothesis  to  be  good 
agents  otherwise,  should  fail  continuously  and  repeatedly  with 
certain  persons  as  '  communicators ' ;  that  first  communicators  of 
a  clearer  type  should  show,  especially  when  themselves  pro- 
fessedly directly  communicating,  the  peculiar  strangeness  which 
they  do  even  to  experienced  agents  who  are  familiar  with  the 
modus  operandi  of  the  communication;  that  there  should  be  a 
special  temporary  bewilderment  shown  in  cases  immediately 
after  death  and  that  this  should  be  followed  in  a  few  days  by  a 
comparatively  complete  clearness  in  various  cases  where  there  is 


Ch.  XXXIV]   Failures  and  Successes  Favor  Spiritism    525 

no  assignable  change  in  the  agent  (unless  it  were  a  diminution 
of  his  telepathic  power) ;  that  there  should  be  specific  mental 
automatisms  which  suggest,  not  the  mind  of  the  supposed  agent, 
or  the  mind  of  the  supposed  percipient,  but  the  mind  of  the 
'  deceased '  person ;  that  memories  of  little  children  recently  de- 
ceased should  have  a  special  telepathic  agency, — such  results  we 
have  no  reason  to  expect  from  what  we  know  or  have  reason  to 
surmise  concerning  telepathic  action  between  one  incarnate  liv- 
ing person  and  another. 

"  Further  there  are  certain  kinds  of  successes  with  particular 
communicators  connected  with  their  knowledge  and  recognition 
of  friends,  shown  most  notably  in  the  case  of  G.  P.,  but  exhibited 
to  some  extent  by  others  also  (e.g.,  Madame  Elisa  and  Louis  R.) 
which  suggest  the  recollections  and  continued  interest  in  per- 
sonal friends  living  which  we  should  naturally  expect  from  the 
alleged  communicators  themselves,  but  for  which  there  seems  to 
be  no  adequate  cause  in  Mrs.  Piper's  percipient  personality. 

"  In  general,  then,  we  may  say  that  there  are  on  the  one  hand 
various  limitations  in  the  information  shown  through  Mrs. 
Piper's  trance,  which  are  primd  facie  explicable  on  the  assump- 
tion that  it  comes  from  the  alleged  communicators,  and  for 
which  we  can  find  no  corresponding  limitations  in  the  minds  of 
living  persons;  and  on  the  other  hand,  that  there  are  various 
selections  of  information  given  in  connection  with  particular 
communicators,  which  are  intelligible  if  regarded  as  made  by  the 
alleged  communicators  themselves,  but  for  which  discrimination 
there  is  no  satisfactory  explanation  to  be  found  by  referring 
them  to  Mrs.  Piper's  personality.  With  one  class  of  deceased 
persons  Mrs.  Piper's  supposed  telepathic  percipience  fails;  with 
another  class  it  succeeds;  and  it  fails  and  succeeds  apparently 
in  accordance  with  what  we  should  expect  from  the  minds  of 
the  deceased,  and  not  in  accordance  with  what  we  should  expect 
from  the  minds  of  living  persons  acting  upon  Mrs.  Piper's  per- 
cipient personality 1  do  not  think  that  there  is  evidence 

enough  producible  to  make  this  pointing  a  certainty.  But,  so 
far  as  it  goes,  it  suggests  that  the  '  natural  grouping '  of  the 
facts  affiliates  them  to  the  personalities  of  the  dead 

"  If  the  information  given  at  the  sittings,  both  in  matter  and 
form,  was  limited  by  the  knowledge  possessed  by  the  sitters,  we 
should  have  no  hesitation  in  supposing  that  it  was  derived  from 
their  minds,  telepathically  or  otherwise;  but  enough  examples 
are  cited  in  this  report  alone  to  show  that  the  information  given 
is  not  so  limited.  We  must  then  make  the  arbitrary  supposi- 
tions that  Mrs.  Piper's  percipient  personality  gets  into  relation 
with  the  minds  of  distant  living  persons,  (1)  who  are  intimate 
friends  of  the  sitters  at  the  time  of  the  sitting  (e.g.,  Pr.XIII, 
297,  Hart's  sitting  and  references  to  the  studs  and  the  Howards, 
etc.),  and  (2)  who  are  scarcely  known,  or  not  at  all  known,  to  the 
sitter  (e.g.,  MacDonough  messages,  p.  340,  and  Aleck  Bousser 


526  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

message,  p.  372).  And  many  of  these  distant  living  persons  had, 
so  far  as  they  knew,  never  been  near  Mrs.  Piper.  These  cases 
then  compel  us  to  assume  a  selective  capacity  in  Mrs.  Piper's 
percipient  personality,  and  not  only  selective  as  to  the  occur- 
rences themselves,  but  discriminative  as  to  the  related  persons; 
that  is  to  say,  attaching  the  various  pieces  of  knowledge  respec- 
tively to  the  fictitious  personalities  whom,  if  real  and  living,  the 
events  in  question  would  have  concerned.  If  now  we  widen  this 
supposed  percipient  personality  of  Mrs.  Piper,  and  differentiate 
its  parts  so  as  to  cover  all  the  various  successes  of  the  com- 
municators described  in  this  report,  with  the  verisimilitudes  of 
the  different  personalities  of  the  '  deceased,'  and  so  as  to  cover 
also  all  the  types  of  confusion  and  failure,  and  so  as  to  allow  for 
the  yet  increasing  number  of  new  communicators,  we  reach  a 
conception  which  goes  as  far  as  the  '  spirit '  hypothesis  itself." 

To  the  point  touched  before — the  liability  of  the  sympa- 
thetic sitter  to  be  fooled — Hodgson  contributes  as  follows 
(Pr.  XIII,  396) : 

"If  the  investigator  persistently  refuses  to  regard  the  com- 
munications as  coming  from  the  sources  claimed,  he  will  not  get 
the  best  results.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  acts  on  the  hypothesis 
that  the  communicators  are  '  spirits,'  acting  under  adverse  con- 
ditions, and  if  he  treats  them  as  he  would  a  living  person  in  a 
similar  state,  he  will  find  an  improvement  in  the  communica- 
tions  To  describe  it  as  it  appears,  the  '  spirit '  in  the  attempt 

to  communicate  seemed  like  a  living  friend  wandering  in  his 
mind  owing  to  an  accident.  To  clear  such  a  person's  mind  we 
should  soothe  him,  not  bother  him  with  questions,  but  let  him 
unburden  his  mind  of  whatever  his  dominant  ideas  were,  remind 
him  of  strong  associations  that  were  dear  to  him,  express  sym- 
pathy, etc.,  etc.;  but  to  ask  him  one  question  after  another,  to 
put  him  through  a  cross-examination  and  expect  him  to  have  all 
the  answers  ready  at  once,  would  obviously  not  be  conducive  to 
anything  but  a  worse  confusion.  And  having  tried  the  hypothe- 
sis of  telepathy  from  the  living  for  several  years,  and  the  '  spirit ' 
hypothesis  also  for  several  years,  I  have  no  hesitation  in  affirm- 
ing with  the  most  absolute  assurance  that  the  '  spirit '  hypothesis 
is  justified  by  its  fruits,  and  the  other  hypothesis  is  not." 

(Pr.XIII,398-9)  :  "  Since  Phinuit's  *  departure '  [explained  be- 
low] the  voice  has  been  used  on  a  few  rare  occasions  only,  and 
almost  exclusively  by  communicators  who  purported  to  be  rela- 
tives of  the  sitters,  and  who  had  used  the  voice  before  Phinuit'a 
'  departure.' . . .  But  there  never  seemed  to  be  any  confusion  be- 
tween the  personality  using  the  hand,  whether  this  was  '  clear  •* 
or  not,  and  the  personality  using  the  voice." 

This  consideration  and  those  before  associated  with  it  seem. 


Ch.  XXXIV]        Imperator  &  Co.  Again  527 

to  me  more  for  the  spiritistic  hypothesis  than  any  others 
which  we  have  met  so  far. 

I  may  have  occasion  to  quote  farther  from  this  Hodgson 
report. 

We  have  seen  the  explosion  of  the  Imperator  gang.  We 
now  have  the  honor  to  assist  at  its  reconstruction.  Make  out 
of  it  what  you  can :  it's  too  much  for  me.  The  puzzle  is  that 
the  thing  worked.  Hodgson  thus  refers  to  Professor  New- 
bold's  sittings  (Pr.  XIII,  408f.)  : 

"  In  the  summer  of  1895,  when  a  friend  of  mine  was  having  a 
series  of  sittings  with  Mrs.  Piper . . .  statements  were  made  by 
G.  P.  denying  the  so-called  '  obsession  by  evil  spirits.'  My  friend 
referred  to  the  alleged  '  Spirit  Teachings '  published  by  W.  S. 
Moses,  and  . . .  later  on  W.  S.  Moses  purported  to  communicate. 
. . .  He  was  confused  and  incoherent . . .  gave  entirely  wrong 
names  . . .  concerning  the  real  identity  of  the  Imperator,  Doctor 
and  Rector  mentioned  in  his  '  Spirit  Teachings/  and  failed  later 
...  to  answer  test-questions Later  still,  however,  he  did  fur- 
nish some  private  information  unknown  to  the  sitters  and  after- 
wards verified 

"I  pointed  out  to  G.  P.  the  importance  of  making  W.  S. 
Moses  '  clear.'. . .  The  final  result  was  that  W.  S.  Moses  professed 
to  get  the  assistance  of  his  former  '  controls,'  who  . . .  demanded 
that  the  control  of  Mrs.  Piper's  '  light '  should  be  placed  in  their 
hands '  Imperator '  claimed  that  the  indiscriminate  experi- 
menting with  Mrs.  Piper's  organism  should  stop,  that  it  was  a 
'battered  and  worn'  machine,  and  needed  much  repairing;  that 
'  he '  with  his  '  assistants,'  '  Doctor,'  '  Rector,'  &c.,  would  repair 
it  as  far  as  possible,  and  that  in  the  meantime  other  persons 
must  be  kept  away Phinuit's  last  appearance  was  on  Janu- 
ary 26th,  1897.  Later  on,  other  alleged  '  communicators '  were 
specified  as  persons  who  would  not  injure  the  '  light ' . . .  and 
various  persons  who  have  had  sittings  in  previous  years  with 
Mrs.  Piper  had  opportunities  of  being  present,  and . . .  were  all 
struck  by  the  improvement  in  the  clearness  and  coherence  of  the 
communications. . . .  Most  remarkable  has  been  the  change  in 
Mrs.  Piper  herself. . . .  Instead  of  the  somewhat  violent  contor- 
tions . . .  when  Phinuit '  controlled,'  she  passes  into  trance  calmly, 
easily,  gently;  and  whereas  there  used  to  be  frequently  indica- 
tions of  dislike  and  shrinking  when  she  was  losing  consciousness, 
the  reverse  is  now  the  case;  she  seems  rather  to  rejoice  at  her 
'  departure,'  and  to  be  in  the  first  instance  depressed  and  dis- 
appointed when,  after  the  trance  is  over,  she  '  comes  to  herself ' 

once  more  in  this  '  dark  world '  of  ours Various  attempts  by 

these  new  '  controls '  to  describe  contemporaneous  incidents  oc- 
curring elsewhere  in  this  world  have  been  notable  failures.  On 


528  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

the  other  hand  there  have  been  a  few  cases  . . .  where  opportunity 
has  been  given  for  tests  purporting  to  come  from  recently  '  de- 
ceased '  persons . . .  the  results  as  a  whole  have  been  much  clearer 
and  more  coherent  than  they  were  in  similar  cases  formerly. 
'  Imperator '  occasionally  purported  to  produce  the  writing,  not, 
however,  as  amanuensis  for  any  other  person,  and  seemed  to  be 
free,  in  a  way  that  no  other  communicator  was  free,  from 
'writing'  the  disturbing  thoughts  of  other  communicators. 
[This  accords  with  his  claim  to  superiority.  H.H.]  The  chief 
amanuensis  now  purports  to  be  '  Rector.'  G.  P.  would  occasion- 
ally write  a  little,  making  some  personal  inquiries,  etc." 

Regarding  Imperator  and  his  companions,  James  says 
something  which  goes  to  the  root  of  the  whole  business,  and 
which,  though  it  is  episodic  to  the  Hodgson  narrative,  may 
as  well  be  considered  here  (Pr.  XXIII,  3) : 

"Dr.  Hodgson  was  disposed  to  admit  the  claim  to  reality  of 
Rector  and  of  the  whole  Imperator-Band  of  which  he  is  a  mem- 
ber, while  I  have  rather  favored  the  idea  of  their  all  being  dream- 
creations  of  Mrs.  Piper,  probably  having  no  existence  except 
when  she  is  in  trance,  but  consolidated  by  repetition  into  per- 
sonalities consistent  enough  to  play  their  several  roles.  Such  at 
least  is  the  dramatic  impression  which  my  acquaintance  with  "the 
sittings  has  left  on  my  mind.  I  can  see  no  contradiction  be- 
tween Rector's  being  on  the  one  hand  an  improvised  creature  of 
this  sort,  and  his  being  on  the  other  hand  the  extraordinarily 
impressive  personality  which  he  unquestionably  is.  He  has  mar- 
velous discernment  of  the  inner  states  of  the  sitters  whom  he 
addresses,  and  speaks  straight  to  their  troubles  as  if  he  knew 
them  all  in  advance.  He  addresses  you  as  if  he  were  the  most 
devoted  of  your  friends.  He  appears  like  an  aged  and,  when  he 
speaks  instead  of  writing,  like  a  somewhat  hollow-voiced  clergy- 
man, a  little  weary  of  his  experience  of  the  world,  endlessly 
patient  and  sympathetic,  and  desiring  to  put  all  his  tenderness 
and  wisdom  at  your  service  while  you  are  there.  Critical  and 
fastidious  sitters  have  recognized  his  wisdom,  and  confess  their 
debt  to  him  as  a  moral  adviser.  With  all  due  respect  to  Mrs. 
Piper,  I  feel  very  sure  that  her  own  waking  capacity  for  being 
a  spiritual  adviser,  if  it  were  compared  with  Rector's,  would  fall 
greatly  behind." 

"  With  all  due  respect "  for  Professor  James's  opinion,  I 
think  I  do  "  see  '  a '  contradiction,"  and  I  see  the  contradic- 
tion because,  with .  Professor  James,  "  I  feel  very  sure  that 
her  own  waking  capacity  for  being  a  spiritual  adviser,  if  it 
were  compared  with  Rector's,  would  fall  greatly  behind." 

If  the  Imperator  band  were  merely,  as  James  suggests, 


Ch.  XXXIV]   Dramatization  Beyond  Medium's  Power    529 

"dream  creations  .  .  .  consolidated  by  repetition  into  per- 
sonalities/' and  if  in  "  her  own  waking  capacity  "  "  compared 
with  Kector's"  she  would  "fall  greatly  behind,"  how  could 
she  make  anything  "  consolidated  by  repetition  "  so  superior 
to  herself?  How  can  she  do  better  as  Eector  than  she  can 
as  herself?  The  whole  scheme  seems  to  me  akin  to  the 
DuPrel  and  Myers  scheme  of  making  a  man  lift  himself 
higher  than  his  head  by  his  own  boot-straps ;  and  beside  it  the 
spiritistic  hypothesis  seems  simplicity  and  probability  them- 
selves. But  this  does  not  prove  the  spiritistic  hypothesis  the 
correct  one,  though  it  does  add  probability  to  the  hypothesis 
of  the  cosmic  soul  with  telepathy  of  varying  degrees  between 
its  individual  components. 

Considerable  study  of  reports  of  seances,  and  a  little  experi* 
ence  with  Foster  and  Mrs.  Piper,  have  failed  to  give  me  any 
reason  to  believe  that  Mrs.  Piper,  in  either  the  normal  or  the 
trance  state,  manifests,  from  her  own  mind,  a  power  of  char- 
acterization equal,  if  not  superior,  to  any  other  ever  mani- 
fested on  earth,  and  a  fertility  certainly  unequaled.  She  has 
either  been  the  mouthpiece  of  actual  characters,  or  has  made 
many  more  characters  than  Shakespere  did,  including  the  Eec- 
tor whom  James  so  praises — all  of  them  individual,  distinct, 
and  vivid.  I  fail  even  to  see  any  adequate  reason  why,  in  her 
trance  state,  she  should,  of  herself,  manifest  powers  so  im- 
measurably superior  to  any  that  she  shows  in  her  ordinary 
state.  The  simplest  individual,  incarnate  (or  discarnate?), 
of  course  manifests  himself  in  a  way  that  the  most  skilful 
dramatist  could  not  equal,  and  it  may  well  be  questioned 
whether  it  is  not  more  rational  to  assume  that  the  hundreds  of 
alleged  personalities  dramatized  in  the  words  and  gestures  of 
Mrs.  Piper  are  manifestations  by  the  personalities  themselves, 
than  that  they  are  creations  of  some  as  yet  unknown  kind  of 
genius  residing  in  some  layer  of  Mrs.  Piper's  consciousness, 
and  getting  its  material  from  fragments  among  her  own 
memories  or  those  of  other  living  persons,  present  or  remote. 

Hodgson  closes  his  report  (Pr.  XIII,  409)  : 

"It  has  been  stated  repeatedly  that  the  'channel  is  not  yet 
clear,'  that  the  machine  is  still  in  process  of  repair;  and  it  has 
been  prophesied  that  I  shall  myself  return  eventually  to  America 
and  spend  several  years  further  in  the  investigation  of  Mrs. 


530  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV. 

Piper's  trance,  and  that  more  remarkable  evidence  of  identity 
will  be  given  than  any  heretofore  obtained." 

He  did  return  and  continue  his  beloved  work  for  several 
years.  We  shall  meet  him  again  in  the  second  instalment  of 
Professor  Newbold's  notes  heretofore  unpublished.  (Chapter 
XXXVI.)  After  that  we  shall  know  him  only  as  an  alleged 
denizen  of  the  spirit  world,  and  perhaps  his  testimony  in  that 
capacity  was  part  of  the  "  more  remarkable  evidence  of  iden- 
tity" promised. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 
PROFESSOR  NEWBOLD'S  REPORT 

IN  1891-5  Professor  William  Romaine  Newbold  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Pennsylvania  had  twenty-six  sittings  with  Mrs. 
Piper,  and  investigated  the  details  of  seven  others  held  on 
his  behalf  by  Hodgson.  They  are  reported  by  the  Professor 
in  Pr.  XIV.  The  report  is  given  as  Part  II,  Hodgson's  report 
in  Pr.  XIII  being  Part  I.  It  is  short  and  attractive  in  both 
material  and  editing,  and  therefore  makes  Part  XXXIV  of 
Vol.  XIV  peculiarly  available  for  a  reader  who  wants  merely 
a  good  specimen  at  first  hand. 

Professor  Newbold  says  (Pr.  XIV,  7)  : 

"  With  regard  to  the  origin  of  the  information  given,  I  hare 
no  theory  to  offer.  I  can  frame  none  to  which  I  cannot  myself 

allege  unanswerable  objections Even  without  resorting  to  the 

assumption  of  a  telepathic  relation  between  the  sitter  and  the 
'  medium,'  no  one  who  has  seen  how  readily  an  acute  '  medium ' 
will  construct  an  appropriate  '  spirit '  message  upon  the  sugges- 
tions furnished  by  a  sitter's  looks  and  words  will  be  easily  con- 
vinced by  any  such  record  as  I  here  offer. 

"  This  is  a  legitimate  objection,  and  to  some  extent  impairs  the 
.value  of  the  evidence. . . .  The  alleged  spirits  of  those  who  had 
but  recently  died,  or  who  had  died  a  violent  death,  or  who  had 
been  bound  to  the  sitter  by  strong  emotional  ties,  nearly  always 
display  great  excitement  and  confusion." 

This  fact  is  of  course  not  restricted  to  Professor  New- 
hold's  sittings,  and  it  may  make  a  little  for  the  telepathic 
hypothesis,  as,  other  things  even,  the  sitter's  vivacity  would 
be  greatest  regarding  those  most  recently  living.  But  there 
are  obvious  reasons  why  it  makes  even  more  for  the  spiritistic 
hypothesis.  Remember  this  when  you  come  to  the  Hodgson 
control.  Professor  Newbold  continues  (Pr.  XIV,  9)  : 

"  Individual  scraps  of  information  may  be  ascribed  with  some 
show  of  plausibility  to  a  telepathic  or  clairvoyant  origin,  the 
arrangement  of  these  scraps  into  mosaics  of  thought,  which, 

531 


532  Professor  Newlold's  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

however  defaced,  still  often  irresistibly  suggest  the  habits,  tastes, 
and  memories  of  some  friend  deceased — for  this  I  know  of  no 
telepathic  or  clairvoyant  analogy.  For  example,  the  demand 
made  by  '  aunt  Sally '  that  I  should  identify  myself  by  expound- 
ing the  significance  of  '  two  marriages  in  this  case,  mother  and 
aunt  grandma  also/  admits  of  no  satisfactory  telepathic  explana- 
tion. The  fact  was  known  to  me  and  might  have  been  got 
telepathically.  But  why  is  the  dream  personality  of  the  only 
communicator  who  died  in  my  childhood  the  only  one  who  seeks 
to  identify  me  ? " 

In  this  case  of  "Aunt  Sally"  G.  P.  says  (Pr.  XIV,  34f.) : 

" '  Your  aunt ...  at  first  she  could  not  make  you  out. . . .'  [Here 
come  confused  statements.]  Finally  the  hands  stops  writing  and 
motions  to  me.  After  several  changes  of  position,  which  seem 
unsatisfactory  to  G.  P.,  I  get  on  my  feet  and  the  hand  feela 
around  the  lower  edge  of  my  waistcoat,  pausing  to  write]  excuse 
this  uncanny  procedure  [finally  presses  firmly  on  median  line 
about  the  lowest  button  of  my  waistcoat  and  writes]  ask 
mot[her?]  she  remembers  this,  Will. . . .  [My  aunt  died  of  the 
effects  of  an  operation  for  the  removal  of  an  ovarian  cyst.] 

"  There  is  or  was  two  marriages  in  the  elderly  lady's  family. 
['  Sally '  was  gray  when  she  died]  which  they  do  not  seem  to  be 
able  to  unravel  just  now  (I  understand,  Mr.  Pelham.)  O.  K. . . . 
just  say  this  for  their  satisfaction  so  they  may  be  quite  sure  you 
understand  them  and  that  you  are  you.  [I  explain  that  my  pater- 
nal grandfather  was  twice  married,  that  his  second  wife  had  a 
younger  sister  whom  my  father  married  many  years  after  his 
father's  death ;  she  is  my  mother.  The  elder  sister  is  still  living, 
and  is  therefore  both  my  aufit  and  my  step-grandmother.]  Yes, 
yes,  yes,  O.  K.  now  you  know  what  the  aunt  grandma  meant  to- 
gether: aunt  and  grandma  if  you  recall  were  given  at  the  same 
time.  [This  is  a  very  interesting  incident.  My  grandfather 
died  more  than  forty  years  ago,  only  eleven  months  after  his 
second  marriage.  We  only  recognize  the  tie  of  blood,  and  many 
persons  do  not  know  that  my  aunt  is  also  his  widow.  The  sup- 
posed speaker  was  another  sister.]  " 

Regarding  all  this  Professor  Newbold  asks  (Pr.  XIV, 
9-10)  : 

"  Why  does  she  allude  in  so  indirect  a  fashion  to  the  mode  of 
her  death  ?  Certainly  no  stratum  of  my  personality  would  have 
felt  hesitation  in  alluding  to  so  commonplace  a  matter  as  a 
laparotomy,  or  would  have  lacked  suitable  language  in  which 
to  express  the  allusion. . . .  Why  was  the  faded  personality  of  this 
almost  forgotten  maiden  aunt  evoked  at  all  ?  I  was  not  ten  years 
old  when  she  died,  and  she  had  been  dead  twenty  years. . . .  Why 


Ch.  XXXV]     Inconsistency  with   Telepathy  533 

were  these  dim  memories  so  clearly  reflected,  while  others,  far 
stronger,  produced  no  effect?  Why  were  my  memories,  in 
process  of  reflection,  so  refracted  as  to  come  seemingly  not  from 
my  masculine  and  adult  point  of  view  but  from  that  of  a  spin- 
ster aunt  who  could  not  at  first  recognize  me  with  confidence, 
and  who,  taking  it  for  granted  that  her  little  nephew  of  ten  had 
not  been  informed  as  to  the  precise  cause  of  her  death,  expected 
him,  although  grown  to  man's  estate,  to  convey  a  very  obvious 
allusion  to  his  mother  for  interpretation  without  himself  know- 
ing what  it  meant  ? 

"  Evidence  of  this  sort  does  not  suggest  telepathy,  it  suggests 
the  actual  presence  of  the  alleged  communicators,  and  if  it  stood 
alone  I  should  have  no  hesitation  in  accepting  that  theory.  Un- 
fortunately it  does  not  stand  alone.  It  is  interwoven  with  ob- 
scurity, confusion,  irrelevancy,  and  error  in  a  most  bewildering 
fashion.  I  agree  with  Dr.  Hodgson  that  the  description  given  by 
the  writers  themselves  of  the  conditions  under  which  they  are 
laboring  would,  if  accepted,  account  for  a  very  large  part  of  this 
matter.  But,  even  after  the  most  generous  allowance  on  this 
score,  there  remains  much  which  the  writers  cannot  explain. 
Easily  first  comes  their  almost  total  inability  to  observe  and  re- 
port the  phenomena  of  the  material  world,  coupled  with  their 
reiterated  assertions  that  they  can  and  will  do  so.  Second  should 
be  put,  perhaps,  the  unaccountable  ignorance  which  they  often 
betray  of  matters  which  upon  any  theory  should  have  been  well 
known  to  them.  [This  tends  to  exclude  telepathy.  H.H.]  In  the 
third  place,  the  general  intellectual,  as  distinguished  from  the 
moral  and  religious,  tone  of  the  more  recent  communications  is 
far  lower  than  we  would  expect  of  beings  who  had  long  enjoyed 
exceptional  opportunities  for  the  acquisition  of  knowledge.  Con- 
crete descriptions  of  the  other  world  can  be  had  indeed  ad 
infinitum,  but  of  organized,  systematized,  conceptual  knowledge 
there  is  little  trace." 

Perhaps  their  opportunities  are  overestimated,  and  perhaps 
it  is  not  in  the  system  of  things  that  such  knowledge,  even 
if  possessed  by  them,  should  reach  us. 

"  From  such  inconsistent  material  one  can  draw  no  fixed  con- 
clusions. But  there  is  one  result  which  I  think  the  investigation 

into  Mrs.  Piper's  and  kindred  cases  should  achieve Until 

within  very  recent  years  the  scientific  world  has  tacitly  rejected 
a  large  number  of  important  philosophical  conceptions  on  the 
ground  that  there  is  absolutely  no  evidence  in  their  favor  what- 
ever. Among  those  popular  conceptions  are  those  of  the  essential 
independence  of  the  mind  and  the  body,  of  the  existence  of  a 
supersensible  world,  and  of  the  possibility  of  occasional  com- 
munication between  that  world  and  this." 

Of  course  there  could  be  no  direct  evidence  of  the  existence 


534  Professor  Newlold's  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

of  a  supersensible  world,  but  I  hope  the  presumption,  even 
as  presented  in  the  first  book  of  this  humble  treatise,  is  not 
too  insignificant  to  be  worth  taking  into  account.  I  may  say 
the  same  of  the  ultimate  independence  of  the  mind  and  the 
body  as  suggested  in  my  early  chapters.  Professor  Newbold 
continues : 

"  We  have  here,  as  it  seems  to  me,  evidence  that  is  worthy  of 
consideration  for  all  these  points.  It  was  well  expressed  by  a 
friend  of  mine,  a  scholar  who  has  been  known  for  his  uncom- 
promising opposition  to  every  form  of  supernaturalism." 

When  people  say  they  don't  believe  in  "  the  supernatural/' 
what  do  they  mean?  No  intelligent  person  would  mean  that 
there  is  nothing  knowable  in  the  universe  but  what  we  already 
know.  This  has  been  contradicted  by  each  new  acquisition  of 
knowledge,  from  the  amoeba's  first  recoil  from  a  contact, 
down.  The  only  other  possible  meanings  seem  to  be  the  infre- 
quent one  that  there  is  no  intelligence  but  the  incarnate  one 
we  know,  and  the  more  frequent  meaning  that  human  intelli- 
gence can  have  no  communication  with  any  other  intelligence 
than  the  incarnate.  Poets,  musicians,  and  nature-lovers  are 
not  apt  to  admit  the  claim.  An  "  opposition  to  every  form  of 
supernaturalism  "  is  a  pretty  big  undertaking. 

Professor  Newbold  goes  on  (pp.  10-11)  to  say  that  his 
friend,  who  was  opposed  "  to  every  form  of  supernaturalism," 

"  had  a  sitting  with  Mrs.  Piper,  at  which  very  remarkable  dis- 
closures were  made,  and  shortly  afterwards  said  to  me,  in  effect, 
*  Scientific  men  cannot  say  much  longer  that  there  is  no  evidence 
for  a  future  life.  I  have  said  it,  but  I  shall  say  it  no  longer;  I 
know  now  that  there  is  evidence,  for  I  have  seen  it.  I  do  not 
believe  in  a  future  life.  I  regard  it  as  one  of  the  most  im- 
probable of  theories.  The  evidence  is  scanty  and  ambiguous  and 
insufficient,  but  it  is  evidence  and  it  must  be  reckoned  with.'  " 

The  alleged  spirit  of  a  friend,  "  F.  A.  M.,"  said  to  Pro- 
fessor Newbold  (Pr.  XIV,  14) : 

" '  Billie  what  are  you  doing  here.'  [hand  reaches  up  and  feels 
my  face,  strokes,  and  grasps  my  beard,  pats  me  appreciatingly, 
and  writes]  changed  a  little.  [I  had  seen  F.  A.  M.  only  once  in 
about  five  years.  Prior  to  that  I  wore  a  mustache  only.  On 
that  one  occasion  we  took  dinner  together  and  I  then  wore  a 
beard.  The  hand  throughout  betrayed  a  great  deal  of  emotional 
excitement  which,  as  well  as  the  affectionate  expressions,  was 
very  unlike  the  F.  A.  M.  whom  I  had  known.]  " 


Ch.  XXXV]    Mrs.  Piper( ?)  does  not  Recognize  Hodgson  535 

I  have  an  impression  that  the  controls  generally  show  much 
more  affection  than  their  professed  originals  did  in  life.  G.  P. 
certainly  did  with  me.  It  reminds  me  of  a  phenomenon  I  had 
often  noticed:  at  the  clubs,  on  returning  to  town  after  the 
summer,  you  can  generally  tell  which  men  have  been  abroad, 
by  the  unusual  effusiveness  of  their  greeting.  This  seems  to 
make  for  the  genuineness  of  the  controls.  At  a  sitting  two 
days  later,  says  Professor  Newbold  (Pr.  XIV,  16) : 

"While  G.  P.  was  writing  Phinuit  was  talking  to  me  [i.e., 
the  medium  had  two  controls  at  once.  See  p.  462.  H.H.] 
Several  times  he  made  remarks  such  as,  'Now,  don't  be  in  a 
hurry,  you'll  have  plenty  of  time  to  talk  soon,'  which  I  could 
not  understand.  I  asked  him  what  he  meant,  saying  that  I  was 
not  in  a  hurry  and  never  said  I  was.  To  this  Phinuit  replied 
that  he  was  talking  to  a  young  man  in  the  spirit  who  was  in  a 
great  hurry  to  begin  communicating." 

After  much  interesting  matter,  the  young  man  says  (p.  17) : 

"'Do  you  know,  dear  fellows,  you  will  ever  be  rewarded  for 
helping  me  to  reach  you  in  this  light  and  trying  to  free  my  poor 
imprisoning  mind.  [R.  H.  explains  this  remark  to  us.  Writer 
is  struck  with  his  ready  comprehension.]  Yes. . . .  Yes,  exactly, 

sir, who  are  you  ? I  cannot  touch  you  sir,  or  reach  you, 

sir.     [R.  H.  moves  his  head  forward;  hand  feels  his  head.]    Do 
not  know  you  sir.'    [It  is  explained  who  R.  H.  is.]  " 

The  idea  of  Mrs.  Piper  not  knowing  Hodgson  strikes  one 
as  very  funny.  Those  who  call  the  whole  exhibition  fraudu- 
lent would  at  least  admit  this  to  be  very  good  play-acting. 
The  same  young  man  continues  (p.  17)  : 

" '  Ever  since  then  I  have  been  trying  to  reach  you,  Dick. 
[Brother  present.  H.H.]  I  saw  a  light  and  many  faces  beckon- 
ing me  on  and  trying  to  comfort  me,  showing  and  assuring  me 
I  should  soon  be  all  right,  and  almost  instantly  I  found  I  was. 
Then  I  called  for  you,  and  tried  to  tell  you  all, — where  I  was . . . 
after  all))  after  all,  sir, — put  this))  after  the  word  all)  [N. 
guesses  at  meaning.]  Not  at  all ...  after  the)  after  the)  [mean- 
ing understood,  viz,  comma  after  all.~\  Yes,  I  never  used  to  write 
badly,  what's  the  matter  with  me  now,  Dick,  don't  I  write  well  ? ' ' 

Perhaps  these  trivialities  may  be  more  apocalyptic  than 
they  seem:  for  they  indicate  pretty  strongly  that  there  is 
something  more  than  telepathy  at  work.  The  sitting  con- 
cludes : 


536  Professor  Newlold's  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

" '  Oh,  Dick,  I  did  not  mean  to  do  anything  wrong . . .  stick . . . 
yes,  sir,  I  will  go  in  presently.  (R.  H. :  You  mean  out.)  Out, 
sir ...  Dick . . .  lore  to  Ma . . .  Dick,  God  bless  you  and  B.  always 
. . .  must  I  go ...  good  bye . . .  not  good  bye . . .  not  good  bye.  I'll 
see  you  again  ...  fid '  [find?]  P  [ ?]  H.  [Hand  takes  pencil  again 
later,  and  writes  Pistol.]  [D.  M. :  Death  resulted  from  a  pistol 
shot.]  " 

Is  this  drama  telepathy? 

At  a  later  sitting  on  June  26,  1894,  Phimrit  said  (Pr. 
XIV,  25) : 

" '  Oh,  Hodgson,  if  you  only  knew  what  people  said  of  you 
here!  (What  do  they  say,  doctor?)  They  say  you  are  a  brute, 
Hodgson.  I  tell  you  that  lady  [a  control.  H.H.]  won't  come 
back  for  you  now.  Why  did  you  speak  so  roughly  to  her.  [H. 
expresses  his  regret  and  says  it  was  necessary  that  she  should  go 
and  she  did  not  do  so  when  asked,  etc.]  You  ought  to  coax  and 
not  drive  her  away.  George  and  I  have  been  trying  to  coax  her 
to  come  but  her  feelings  are  hurt  and  I  do  not  believe  that  she 
will.' " 

Is  this  telepathy  ? 

CASE  IX.    (Pr.XIV,36f.) 
W.  Stainton  Moses. 

"[At  the  sitting  of  June  19th,  1895,  (Present:  W.  R.  N.) 
George  Pelham  was  telling  me  how  the  future  state  of  the  soul 
is  affected  by  its  earthly  life] — It  is  only  the  body  that  sins  and 
not  the  soul  (Does  the  soul  carry  with  it  into  its  new  life  all 
its  passions  and  animal  appetites?)  Oh  no  indeed,  not  at  all. 
Why  my  good  friend  and  scholar  you  would  have  this  world  of 
ours  a  decidedly  material  one  if  it  were  so.  (Do  you  know  of 
Stainton  Moses?)  No,  not  very  much.  Why?  (Did  you  ever 
know  of  him  or  know  what  he  did?)  I  only  have  an  idea  from 
having  met  him  here.  (Can  you  tell  me  what  he  said?)  No, 
only  that  he  was  W.  Stainton  Moses.  I  found  him  for  '  E.'  and 
Hodgson.  [E.  was  the  alleged  spirit  of  Edmund  Gurney.  Why 
couldn't  he  find  Moses  for  himself?  My  old  friend  George  Pel- 
ham  seems  to  have  succeeded  Mercury  as  general  messenger — 
about  the  last  function  I  should  have  expected  him  to  venture. 
H.H.]  (Did  you  tell  Hodgson  this?)  I  do  not  think  so.  (Did 
he  say  anything  about  his  mediumship?)  No.  (His  writings 
claimed  that  the  soul  carried  with  it  all  its  passions  and  appe- 
tites and  was  very  slowly  purified  of  them.)  It  is  all  untrue. 
(And  that  the  souls  of  the  bad  hover  over  the  earth  goading 
sinners  on  to  their  own  destruction.)  Not  so.  Not  at  [all]  so. 
I  claim  to  understand  this  and  it  is  emphatically  not  so.  Sin- 
ners are  sinners  only  in  one  life. 

"  [The  next  day,  June  20th,  I  said]  (Can  you  bring  Stainton 


Ch,  XXXV]    Stainton  Moses  Hard  to  Find  537 

Moses  here?)  I  will  do  my  best.  (Is  he  far  advanced?)  Oh  no, 
I  should  say  not.  He  will  have  to  think  for  awhile  yet.  (What 
do  you  mean?)  Well,  have  you  forgotten  all  I  told  you  before? 
(You  mean  about  progression  by  repentance  ?)  Certainly  I  do. 
(Wasn't  he  good?)  Yes,  but  not  perfect  by  any  means.  (Was 
he  a  true  medium?)  True,  yes,  very  true.  (Had  he  light?) 
Yes.  (Yet  not  all  true?)  Yes,  but  his  light  was  very  true,  yet 
he  made  a  great  many  mistakes  and  deceived  himself.  [The 
reader  is  advised  to  have  in  mind  these  qualifications.  H.H.] 
[At  the  close  of  the  sitting  I  said:]  (I  want  to  see  Stainton 
Moses.)  Well,  if  I  do  not  bring  him  do  not  be  disappointed, 
because  I  will  if  I  can  find  him. 

"  [On  the  21st,  I  asked  again  about  Stainton  Moses.]  I  can- 
not bring  Stainton  Moses  because  he  is  not  in  my  surroundings 
yet.  (Can  you  explain  this  further?)  Well,  of  course  I  cannot 
bring  every  known  person  here  just  when  you  wish.  (How 
about  your  surroundings?)  This  is  a  large  sphere.  I  have  the 
doctor  after  him  now.  [To  some  forgotten  question]  No,  wait 
patiently  and  I  will  wake  him  up  when  he  arrives.  (Is  he 

asleep  ?)  Oh,  B you  are  stupid  I  fear  at  times,  your  mind 

is  like  a  lightening  . . .  machine  ...  I  do  not  mean  wake  him  up 
in  a  material  sense.  (Nor  did  I.)  Well  then,  old  man,  don't 
be  wasting  light.  (I'm  not  wasting  light  but  I'm  bound  to  find 
out  what  you  mean.)  Well,  this  is  what  I  wish  also.  (Stainton 
Moses  has  been  nearly  three  years  in  the  spirit — a  long  time.) 
Yes.  (Do  you  mean  to  say  that  he  is  not  yet  free  from  confu- 
sion ?)  No.  (Do  you  mean  that  he  will  be  confused  in  getting 
at  the  medium?)  Certainly,  a  little,  this  is  why  I  use  the  ex- 
pression, wake  him  up. 

"  [On  the  22nd,  Phinuit  said],  do  you  know  Billie,  George  is 
talking  to  such  a  funny  looking  man ;  he  has  a  long  double  coat 
with  a  large  collar  and  cape, — a  long  beard,  large  eyes  with  droop- 
ing lids,  [fairly  shouts  with  laughter]  [i.e.  Phinuit  does.  H.H.]  " 

And  now  who  should  turn  up  but  our  old  friend  Stainton 
Moses?  The  description  just  given,  and  what  follows,  left 
me  with  the  impression  of  an  almost  comical  figure  of  an 
eccentric  recluse.  That  figure  was  not  out  of  accord  with 
what  I  knew  before,  or  with  the  strong  and  almost  majestic 
portrait  of  Moses  after  death,  in  Pr.  IX.  Judge  my  surprise, 
then,  on  getting  over  a  copy  of  Moses's  Spirit  Teachings, 
to  find  the  portrait  of  Moses  which  serves  as  frontispiece  that 
of  a  man  turned  out  by  a  very  good  tailor  and  very  good 
barber,  with  a  gardenia  in  his  buttonhole.  The  book  contains 
also  a  portrait  of  him  at  about  G.  P.'s  age  at  death. 

Since  I  wrote  that  last  sentence,  I  have  received  an  argu- 


538  'Professor  Newbold's  Report    [Bk.  II,  Ft  IV 

ment  for  spiritism  beside  which  all  others  I  know  seem,  for 
the  moment  at  least,  to  sink  into  comparative  insignificance, 
and  all  against  it  to  impotence.  I  took  the  younger  portrait 
to  my  wife,  who  is  a  remarkable  judge  of  likenesses  and 
draws  them  well,  covered  the  lower  part  of  the  long  beard 
with  my  hand,  and  asked  her  whose  portrait  it  was.  She 
said :  "  Hodgson."  I  said :  "  No :  look  again."  She  said :  "  It 
isn't  George  Pelham,  is  it?"  I  said:  "No,  but  it's  much 
more  like  him  than  Hodgson :  it  has  George's  softer  and  more 
contemplative  expression,  and  lacks  Hodgson's  air  of  resolu- 
tion." She  answered:  "Yes,  perhaps  you're  right."  The 
difference  of  expression  prevented  my  being  reminded  of 
Hodgson  at  all. 

The  three  most  prominent  alleged  delegates,  then,  from  the 
world  beyond  our  present  ordinary  senses  to  the  world  of 
sense,  are  the  alleged  discarnate  souls  of  three  men  who,  when 
here,  looked  so  much  alike  that  a  portrait  of  one  of  them 
was  thought  by  an  expert  to  be  a  portrait  of  either  of  the 
two  others.  The  implication  is  so  startling  that  at  first  I 
find  it  confusing,  as  perhaps  the  reader  will,  and  he  there- 
fore may  not  think  it  banal  for  me  to  try  to  put  it  in  terms. 

Suppose  a  body  of  explorers  to  be  divided  in  a  storm. 
Communication  would  be  restored  by  those  having  certain 
qualities  of  voice,  and  certain  ingenuities  in  the  construction 
and  use  of  signals — fires,  torches,  heliographs,  etc.  The  men 
having  these  qualities  would  inevitably  have  certain  qualities 
of  countenance  in  common,  and  the  more  the  qualities  re- 
quired for  the  special  means  employed  are  peculiar,  arduous, 
and  pervasive  of  the  entire  character,  the  more  alike  the  inevi- 
table effects  of  character  on  countenance.  It  does  not  then 
seem  a  forced  conclusion  that  if  the  methods  employed  were 
very  peculiar  and  difficult,  the  few  men  able  to  use  them 
would  have  extraordinary  points  of  physiognomical  resem- 
blance. 

Now  if  bodily  death  is  but  a  separation  of  discarnate  spirits 
from  incarnate,  and  if  communication  between  the  respective 
bands  is  difficult — so  difficult  as  to  be  possible  to  but  a 
few,  and  through  a  few  mediums,  we  would  have  in  that 
regard  just  the  conditions  of  our  separated  explorers — a  few 
"spirits"  able  to  communicate,  and  a  few  persons  able  to 


Ch.  XXXV]       'Suggestive  Resemblances  in  Portraits      539 

act  as  mediums  for  the  communications.  Moreover,  the  few 
communicators  would  have  in  common  a  rare  and  marked  set 
of  psychical  characteristics  which,  during  their  earthly  careers, 
would  have  been  attended  by  marked  physiognomical  char- 
acteristics in  common — they  would  have  looked  alike.  Now 
that  characteristic  of  the  men  on  earth  was  so  marked  in  the 
faces  of  Moses,  George  Pelham,  and  Hodgson,  that,  as  already 
remarked,  an  expert  says  that  a  portrait  of  any  one  of  them 
serves  well  for  either  of  the  others.  Does  this  not  lead 
directly  to  a  presumption  that  the  communications  alleged  to 
proceed  through  Moses  here,  and  from  him  and  G.  P.  and 
Hodgson  hereafter,  the  latter  communications  abounding  in 
the  characteristics  which  marked  the  men  here,  are  really  what 
they  purport  to  be?  Does  telepathy  or  teloteropathy  or  a 
medium's  divided  personality  offer  credentials  nearly  as  strong 
as  this  one  ?  Is  not  the  force  of  all  apparent  objections  to  the 
communications  being  what  they  profess,  materially  dimin- 
ished by  this  circumstance  ?  I  confess  that  it  throws  a  heavy 
weight  into  the  spiritistic  side  of  the  scales  that  I  have  been 
holding  with  varying  ups  and  downs  for  many  years. 

Since  writing  the  foregoing,  I  have  shown  my  wife  another 
portrait,  first  covering  an  unusually  heavy  mustache.  She 
said :  "  Well,  I  suppose  it's  another  one  of  Hodgson  or  George. 
But  of  course  I'm  sophisticated  in  saying  that,  after  what 
you  have  just  told  me  about  the  first  portrait.  But  according 
to  the  clearest  judgment  I  can  form,  it  would  do  for  either 
George  or  Hodgson,  or  the  original  of  the  portrait  you  showed 
me  before." 

It  was  Foster! 

Some  hours  later  I  showed  her  another  portrait,  asking 
her  if  it  reminded  her  of  anybody.  "  Why,  Hodgson !  "  she 
exclaimed. 

It  was  Stainton  Moses — the  frontispiece  I  have  already 
described.  I  had,  you  remember,  previously  shown  her  only 
the  younger  portrait.  She  knew  Hodgson,  by  the  way,  long 
before  his  death,  and  had  not  seen  him  during  his  last  years. 

The  resemblance  of  the  other  men  to  Foster,  of  course  adds 
to  the  probability  of  all  being  genuine  communicators,  but  I 
have  not  learned  of  Foster's  alleged  spirit  communicating  from 
the  other  side.  His  failure  to  show  up  may  have  some- 


540  Professor  Newlold's  Report    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

thing  to  do  with  the  fact  that  at  his  death  all  his  faculties 
had  disappeared  in  connection  with  softening  of  the  brain. 
But  one  rebels  at  the  idea  that  if  there  be  a  survival  of  death, 
his  strange  genius  and  kindly  nature  should  not  have  a  part 
in  it — a  greater  part  than  that  of  commonplace  souls. 

I  should  add  that  the  resemblance  between  these  four  men 
is  more  marked  in  the  black-and-white  portraits  than  it  was 
in  life.  Hodgson  was  sandy-haired  before  he  grew  gray,  and 
burly.  His  eyes  were  bluish.  Foster  was  burly,  dark-haired, 
dark-eyed.  George  Pelham  was  small  and  slight,  with  dark 
hair  and  light  eyes.  Moses  was  burly. 

I  have  often  wondered  why,  of  all  people  who  have  died 
since  G.  P.  reached  maturity,  he  should  have  been  the  one  to 
show  up  through,  or  be  shown  up  by,  Mrs.  Piper.  In  habits 
and  appearance  he  was  an  exceptionally  unobtrusive  person- 
ality. In  a  roomful  of  people  he  was  perhaps  the  last  one  to 
impress  a  stranger  or  be  engaged  with  a  friend,  except  as  his 
presence  became  noticed  through  his  ingenious  and  tenacious 
support  of  some  theory  opposed  to  the  convictions  of  the  ma- 
jority. If  the  room  were  not  full,  but  shared  with  him  by  only 
a  few  congenial  persons,  his  presence  would  at  once  be  felt  as 
of  value.  Had  he  lived  longer,  his  literary  and  philosophical 
tastes  might  have  made  him  widely  known.  He  had  a  few 
close  and  warm  friends  in  intellectual  circles  in  both  New 
York  and  Boston,  but  to  the  world  in  general  he  died  un- 
known, and  to  the  average  members  of  the  more  intelligent 
polite  world  who  were  friends  of  his  exceptionally  prominent 
family — historic  on  both  sides,  he  was  the  retiring,  somewhat 
eccentric,  comparatively  unknown  member. 

If  the  men  of  his  grade  of  intellect  in  New  York  and 
Boston  had  been  called  upon  to  pick  out  the  one  of  them- 
selves most  apt  to  be  determined  by  natural  selection  for  the 
place  he  has  filled  in  the  annals  of  Psychical  Eesearch,  he 
would  have  been  as  apt  as  anybody  to  be  at  the  foot  of  the  poll. 

And  now  the  mystery  of  his  being  placed  by  Nature  in  the 
first  rank,  has  been  provisionally  explained :  his  resemblance 
to  Moses,  Hodgson,  and  Foster  shows  that  he  had  the  same 
qualities  which  made  them  leaders  in  that  mysterious  depart- 
ment on  earth,  and  has  continued  either  reflections  of  them 


Ch.  XXXV]    Phinuit  and  G.  P.  Bring  Moses  541 

(with  the  exception  of  Foster)  or  their  surviving  personalities, 
as  leaders  since  they  departed  from  the  sight  of  men.  What, 
then,  are  the  implications  from  their  common  resemblance  and 
their  common  alleged  communications  after  death  with  sur- 
vivors ? 

One  theory  is  that,  although  G.  P.,  as  above  explained,  did 
not  usually  impress  himself  at  all,  that  type  of  man  does  so 
impress  himself  upon  virtually  everyone  he  meets  that  hardly 
one  of  them  can  sit  with  the  "  medium  "  who  happens  to  have 
lately  been  first,  without  making  her  act  as  if  she  were 
herself  the  man  of  that  type  with  whom  the  sitter  had  come 
into  contact — or,  more  improbable  still,  that  although  Mrs. 
Piper  had  seen  G.  P.  but  once  (when  probably  she  didn't  see 
him,  being  in  trance  most  if  not  all  of  the  time  that  he  was 
present),  after  his  death,  years  later,  there  was  a  period  of  still 
more  years  during  which  hardly  anybody  could  be  near  her 
in  trance  without  making  her  act  and  talk  like  G.  P. 

Between  these  positions  on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  position  that  a  surviving  G.  P.,  and  not  the  sitter  or 
her  memories,  was  the  cause  of  Mrs.  Piper's  phenomena,  there 
seems  as  yet  no  other  position  visible.  Eegarding  which  is 
the  less  strained  of  the  positions  that  are  visible,  the  reader 
will  have  his  impressions,  as  I  have  mine.  But  suspension  of 
judgment  is  still  in  order. 

To  return  to  Professor  Newbold's  Piper-Moses  stance. 
Phinuit  continues  (Pr.  XIV,  37f.)  : 

" '  George  is  shaking  his  fingers  at  me.  He  sent  me  after  that 
gentleman.  I  found  him  in  another  part  of  our  world.  (Far 
away?)  It  would  be  a  long  way  to  you  Billie  but  not  so  far  to 
me.  George  had  difficulty  in  having  him  come  but  they  had  a 
long  talk  and  George  made  it  all  right  with  him.  He  didn't 
understand  what  we  wished  of  him.  (Who  is  he?)  I  don't 
know  his  name.  George  called  me  and  sent  me  after  him — you 
understand  Billie — said :  "  You  go  and  find  him  for  me,  doctor." 
(How  did  you  know  whom  he  wanted?)  He  said,  "  I  want  you 
to  find  a  friend  of  mine  who  used  to  be  a  medium  in  the  body," 
used  the  light,  you  know.  Oh  he  has  a  great  deal  of  light,  more 
than  anybody.  (Do  spirits  have  light  too?)  What  d'you  mean 
Billie?  Spirits  are  all  light.  (I  mean  does  a  person  who  has 
light  in  the  body  have  in  the  spirit  also  more  light  than  others?) 
Yes  indeed.  (Tell  me  how  George  made  you  know  whom  he 
wanted.)  He  described  him.  (And  his  influence?)  Of  course. 


542  Professor  Newbold's  Report    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

(You  know  it's  very  hard  for  us  to  believe  in  spirits  at  all.  Do 
you  remember  your  life  on  earth,  doctor  ?)  Oh  yes,  but  I've  been 
here  a  very  long  time.  (Did  you  believe  in  spirits  while  you 
were  on  earth?)  [Phinuit  gives  a  short  derisive  laugh.]  Not 
much.  Not  I.  (Then  you  should  sympathize  with  us.)  Oh,  I 
can't  put  myself  in  your  place.'  [The  above  description  of  S.  M. 
answers  to  the  notion  I  had  of  him  at  the  time,  derived  from 
portraits.]  " 

Professor  Newbold  had  apparently  seen  portraits  made 
under  the  auspices  of  a  different  tailor  and  a  different  barber 
from  those  concerned  in  the  frontispiece  of  the  latest  edition 
of  Spirit  Teachings. 

"  [G.  P.  writing :]  '  Here  is  Stainton  Moses,  do  you  wish  to 
see  him?  (Yes.)  Well,  now  let  me  give  you  a  bit  of  advice. 
Speak  slowly  and  distinctly,  making  sure  that  you  articulate 
properly,  or  in  other  words  well.  (I  know  my  articulation  is 
very  bad.)  Yes,  then  he  will  answer  to  me  all  questions  dis- 
tinctly. You  see  he  is  talking  to  me  now.  Fire  away.  (Tell 
him  I  have  read  with  interest  his  book,  Spirit  Teachings,  but 
find  in  it  statements  apparently  inconsistent  with  what  you  say, 
and  I  would  like  to  know  his  explanation  of  the  fact.)  Believe 
you  in  me  and  my  teachings?  [Moses  has  taken  hold,  or  G.  P. 
repeats  for  him.  His  quaint  phraseology  peters  out  before  the 
end  of  their  interviews.  H.H.]  (I  was  much  impressed  with 
them,  Mr.  Moses,  especially  as  your  statements  and  Mr.  Pelham's 
agree  in  the  main.  But  how  about  the  inconsistencies?)  Con- 
tradict the  genuine  statements  made  by  our  friend  Pelham, 
whom  I  am  delighted  to  meet.  (I  did  not  say  contradict,  al- 
though it  appears  so.  Can  you  explain  them?)  I  do  not  under- 
stand your  question.  (Will  you  explain  these  seeming  contra- 
dictions?) What  are  they,  please  sir?  (You  taught  that  evil 
Bpirits  tempt  sinners  to  their  own  destruction.)  I  have  found 
out  differently  since  I  came  over  here.  This  particular  state- 
ment given  me  by  my  friends  as  their  medium  when  I  was  in 
the  body  is  not  true.  (The  second  is  that  the  soul  carries  its 
passions  and  appetites  with  it.)  Material  passions.  U  N — true. 
It  is  not  so.  I  have  found  out  the  difference.  (Thank  you.) 
Not  at  all.  (Would  you  like  to  make  any  other  corrections  in 
your  book?)  There  are  a  few.  One  is  I  believe  that  our 
thoughts  were  practically  the  same  here  as  in  the  body,  i.e., 
that  we  had  every  desire  after  reaching  this  life  as  when  it ... 
but  I  find  that  we  leave  all  such  behind,  in  other  words  it  dies 
with  the  body.  You  will  understand  I  do  not  mean  thoughts, 
but  only  evil  [thoughts].  [All  this  corresponds  with  G.  P.'s 
statement  to  me,  and  several  others.  H.H.]  (Are  you  willing 
to  give  me  as  tests  the  names  of  your  '  guides.')  Guides,  well  I 
object  to  the  expression.  [He  uses  it  himself  freely  four  days 


Gh.  XXXV]    Moses  Boggles  Imperator  Names  543 

later.  H.H.]  (Indeed.)  I  do  now,  yet  I  did  not  before.  (These 
names  have  never  been  made  public  since  your  death.  If  you 
are  willing  to  give  them  I  would  be  glad  to  know.)  I  will  give 
you  one.  [I  hand  a  new  pencil.  Hand  turns  and  twists  it  some 
moments  before  writing.]  Pencil — well,  well — oh  I  see.  (Who 
was  '  Rector  ?')  Dr. (I  repeat,  Dr. ?)  Yes  sir.  Rec- 
tor applied  for  convenience  instead  of  Dr. (You  mean  the 

true  name  of  the  spirit  Rector  was  Dr. ?)    I  do  mean  just 

this,  but  I  had  no  authority  to  speak  of  Rector  as  Dr.  

(But  there  was  another  spirit  known  as  Doctor.)  I  was  obliged 
to  distinguish  one  from  the  other  according  to  their  wish.  (Who 

was  the  spirit  'Doctor'?)     X [X  supplied  by  me,  as  the 

dashes  alone  were  confusing.  H.H.]  (Indeed.  No  one  will  be 
told  of  this  save  Mr.  Myers  and  Dr.  Hodgson.)  Thanks.  (May 
I  tell  the  latter?)  Certainly  sir,  if  he  is  reliable.  (He  is.)  I'll 

ask  Mr.  Pelham. . . .  Certainly  sir.    X was  a  very  good  man 

sir  and  was  always  with  me.  Have  you  these?  Did  you  hear 
me?  (Yes.  Now  are  you  willing  to  tell  me  the  name  of  'Im- 
perator '  also  ?)  Well,  I  have  never  divulged  this  name  to  any- 
one. I'll  think  it  over  and  let  you  know.  [Moses  professed 
to  have  divulged  it  to  Myers.  H.H.]  (These  names  have  never 
been  made  public  and  they  will  afford  excellent  proof  of  your 
identity.)  I  understand  sir. ...  I  know  Albert ...  I  do — never 
mind . . .  this  had  to  do  with  . . .  understand . . .  (How  about  the 
physical  phenomena  produced  through  you?)  It  was  not  done 
by  any  effort  of  mine  or  on  my  part.  (Could  such  be  produced 
through  this  medium?)  [They  never  have  been.  H.H.]  Oh  I 
do  not  know  sir.  Generally  the  intelligences  have  their  cwn 
phases  sir  and  work  accordingly.  (In  your  book,  Mr.  Moses,  you 
made  certain  statements  about  some  historical  personages,  such 
as  Abraham,  Moses,  the  Prophets,  and  Jesus  Christ.  Do  you 
wish  to  modify  any  of  these?)  Not  at  all  (All  are  true?)  To 
the  letter  sir  (You  recollect  nothing  else  in  your  book  that  you 
would  desire  to  change?)  Not  at  all  sir  (Have  you  any  mes- 
sages to  send  to  friends?)  I  have  had  a  wonderful  experience 
here  sir  and  I  am  extremely  happy  and  I  consider  myself  ex- 
tremely fortunate  sir  to  have  been  brought  here  by  this  gentle- 
man . . .  Spear  [I  spell  it,  spear.  Hand  writes]  e  (Oh  you 
mean  s  p  e  e  r  ?)  Certainly . . .  letter  . . .  my  thoughts  are  not 
quite  clear,  sir,  yet . . .  Speer ...  I  have  a  friend  . . .  recollection 
of  speer  [Writing  is  growing  dreamy.  I  say]  (You  mean  Charl- 
ton  T.  Speer,  the  musician?)  [Cf.  p.  189.  H.H.]  [Excitement 
and  pounding.]  Yes,  yes,  why  certainly,  give  my  love  to  my 
affectionate  brother  worker  in  the  body,  my  dearest  love,  love  . . . 
yes  sir,  I  do  wish  to  give  it  very  much  this  reaches  every  chord 
in  my  soul  sir.  (Do  you  remember  Mr.  F.  W.  H.  Myers?)  Oh 
I  think  I  do  sir.  Are  you  he?  (No.  I  am  a  stranger  to  you. 
He  is  editing  and  publishing  some  of  your  MSS.)  Good,  good, 
good. ...  I  think  I  do  ...  thanks  sir  for  giving  me  this  inform*- 


544  Professor  Newbold's  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

tion  regarding  my  book  (I  wished  those  names  as  proof  of 
your  identity.)  [Question  misunderstood]  Certainly  I  am 
Stanton  [only  one  stroke  for  n]  Moses.  (Do  you  remember 
Richard  Hodgson?)  No,  I  think  not  sir,  are  you  he?  (No. 
But  he  was  a  member  of  the  Council  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research  while  you  were.)  [At  or  about  the  word  '  Society ' 
the  hand  displayed  great  excitement.]  [It  will  be  remembered 
that  Moses  broke  with  the  society.  H.H.]  Of  course  I  remember 
him.  (He  went  to  America.)  Yes,  I  remember  he  went  there 
some  time  ago.  (You  are  now  in  America,  near  Boston.)  Well, 
I  longed  to  go  to  America  and  this  will  open  up  a  great  field  to 
me.  (Good-bye.  Will  you  come  again  and  speak  to  Dr.  Hodg- 
son?) I  am  of  course  a  little  strange  here,  yet  nothing  would 
give  me  greater  pleasure  than  to  prove  to  the  world  my  identity 
I  am  sure.  I  was  a  great  sufferer  physically  and  I  could  not  do 
altogether  as  I  wished  in  consequence,  yet  I  am  strong  and  well 
here  and  as  I  can  see  through  this  light  clearly  I  should  be 
pleased  to  help  you  all.  (You  will  come  again?)  Yes  sir.  (And 
then  explain  the  reason  for  your  mistakes  T)  Certainly  sir.  Oh 
I  am  so  pleased  to  return.'  [Further  writing,  on  personal  mat- 
ters, by  G.  P.  At  the  close  of  the  sitting  Phinuit  returns. 
Speaks  with  difficulty]  '  George  has  been  teaching  that  man  a 
lesson,  showing  him  how  to  use  the  light.' " 

"  [Sitting  of  June  24th,  1895.  Present:  R.  H.  and  W.  R.  N. 
Mrs.  Piper  goes  into  trance  easily,  without  the  usual  struggles. 
[Suggestive,  as  she  is  coming  under  the  control  of  a  powerful 
influence,  that  she  should  do  so  with  special  ease.  H.H.]  R.  H. 
remarks  that  this  is  a  new  control.  Her  hands  move  aimlessly 
about,  touching  her  eyebrows  and  temples  with  the  finger  tips 
and  feeling  Hodgson's  face.  Gasps,  peculiar  rattling  in  her 
throat,  her  face  is  very  much  contorted.  [These  are  not 
"the  usual  struggles."  H.H.]  Ineffectual  attempts  to  speak, 
finally  gasps  out]  '  Moses  [Hodgson  encourages  communicator. 
Head  nods]  (H. :  I'm  Hodgson.)  [Head  nods,  she  groans  and 
grunts,  hands  move  about.  Right  hand  begins  to  write.  R.  H. 
asking  questions]  I  am  W.  Stainton  Moses  I  am  he  in  reality. 
Oh  my  dear  sir  I  am  so  very  delighted  to  find  this  bright  path  to 
earth.  (I'm  very  glad  indeed.)  I  am  here  in  every  organ  of  a 
human  body.  (Yes,  you're  occupying  the  medium's  body.)  I 
am  a  medium  also.  (Yes,  we  know.)  I  did  see  my  spirits 
plainly.  How  strange  you  look.  Are  you  still  in  the  life  on 
earth?  (Yes.)  You  must  necessarily  be  I  am  sure.  (Yes.)  Do 
you  remember  one  of  our  friends  and  fellow  workers  Dr.  Wal- 
lace? (You  mean  Alfred  R.  Wallace?)  Certainly,  very  well, 
my  friend  Wallace.  (In  the  body?)  Yes,  give  him  my  love. 
(I  will  certainly.)  Also  Myers  (Yes  indeed)  whom  I  remember 
well.  [Four  days  before,  he  said:  "  I  think  I  do."  H.H.]  (Yes 
I  certainly  will)  all  right.  I  had  a  spirit  once  named  Wallace. 
You  never  knew did  you  ?  (No  I  didn't.)  He  was  one  of 


Ch.  XXXV]    Moses  Boggles  Imperator  Names  545 

my  guides  when  on  earth.    (What  name  did  you  give  him,  i.e., 

.)    Rector,  and  not  Dr.  as  I  had  explained  to  some  friend  of 

yours.    Rector  was ( ?)    Yes  distinctly,  he  was  Rector. 

(Who  was  Doctor?)    Not  Wallace,  but  a  Dr. whom  I  used 

to  know  at  college.  [R.  H.  pronounces  and  spells  the  name 
over.]  Yes  sir.  It  is  very  singular  how  the  names  of  my 
former  friends  and  guides  run  in  my  mind . . .  run  through  my 
mind  just  now,  at  this  moment.  (Mr.  Moses,  I  wish  to  tell  you 
something  that  will  interest  you.  Mr.  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  whom 
you  knew)  quite  (has  been  publishing  a  full  account  of  your 
life  experiences  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 

Research.)     Viz.,  S.P.R good  ...  oh  glad  I  am  to  meet  you 

here ...  I  will  help  you  in  your  work.  (We  shall  be  glad  indeed. 
I  wish  to  ask  you  one  important  question)  let  me  clear  up  all 
my  thoughts  and  I  will  help  you.  (Do  you  wish  to  write  your 
own  thoughts  or  answer  questions?)  I  would  like  to  become 
acquainted  with  these  conditions.  (Good.)  Myers  what  about 
Myers.  (Myers  has  been  publishing  a  record  of  your  experiences 
and  has  referred  to  Rector,  Doctor  and  Imperator,  but  explains 
that  the  persons  whom  these  names  represented  are  not  to  be 
mentioned.)  Private.  (But  I  understand  that  Myers  knows.) 
Yes,  he  must.  (We  are  not  going  to  publish  them.)  Do  not. 
(But  you  understand  if  we  tell  Myers  who  Imperator  is,  it  will 
be  strong  test  of  your  identity.)  Yes  . . .  Rector  ...  I  know . . . 
the  name  was  taken  expressly  for  distinction,  i.e.,  to  distinguish 

one  from  the  other,  and  Dr.  was  Dr.  whom  I  knew  very 

well  at  college.  (Could  you  tell  us,  if  it  will  be  kept  private,  who 
Imperator  was?)  I  should  hope  so.  Question,  I  did  not  catch 
sir.  (Can  you  tell  us  who  Imperator  was?)  Certainly,  a  young 
lady  friend  of  mine.  (Are  you  sure?  I  mean  the  famous  com- 
municator from  the  spirit  world  whom  you  spoke  of  as  Im- 
perator.) Oh  no,  but  she  in  my  spirit  teachings  is  mentioned. 
(I  mean  the  Imperator  also  mentioned  in  your  Spirit  Teach- 
ings.) Yes.  Yes.  Must  I  tell  you  who  it  was.  (Let  me  ex- 
plain. I  wish  you  to  use  your  own  judgment.  Mr.  Myers 
knows)  he  does  (and  we  do  not  know.  Nobody  in  the  United 
States  knows.  If  you  tell  us  and  we  send  it  to  Myers  privately, 
it  will  be  a  very  good  test  of  your  identity,  being  information  to 

him  which  nobody  possesses  on  this  side  of  the  water.)     Y . 

[Initial  supplied  by  me.  H.H.]    (Y ?)    Certainly.    (Y ?) 

Yes.  Now  I  know  wherein  I  speak.  I  never  during  my  illness 
when  being  helped  by  him  told  or  divulged  his  name  to  anyone 

and  I  only  left  it  written  (Y )  in  my  MSS.     (Very  good, 

Mr.  Moses.  This  will  be  a  splendid  test)  in  or  among  my  pri- 
vate papers.  (Good.  That's  first  rate.)  No  more  sir.  (You  are 
getting  exhausted,  aren't  you?)  fllere  the  left  hand  becomes 
convulsed  and  rubs  Mrs.  Piper's  right  cheek  in  a  manner  char- 
acteristic of  Phinuit.l  I  wish  to  change  my  position  sir  if  you 
please.  (Yes,  do  so.)  Help  me  to  remain  here  I  wish  very 


546  Professor  Newlold's  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

much  to  continue  my  remembrances.  (Yes,  we  shall  be  very 
glad  too.)  I  remember  Mrs.  Speer  very  well.'  [While  the  last 
sentence  was  being  written  Phinuit  remarks  to  Newbold:] 
[Viva  voce  ?  H.H.]  '  That  gentleman's  a  nice  fellow,  he's  a 
clergyman.'  *  Give  my  love  to  all  on  earth. . . .  yes  . . .  who  can 
deny  my  existence ...  oh  my  existence  I  say,  who  can  deny  that 
I  exist?  (We  do  not.)  Stainton  Moses.  (Can  you  write  your 
full  name  ?)  What  Stainton  ...  W ...  Moses  always  Stainton 

Moses  and  always  will  be ' 

"  (Now  we  wish  your  explanation  of  certain  things.  What  was 
the  origin  of  this  mistake  about  evil  spirits  taking  possession  of 
men  and  leading  them  on  to  do  wrong?)  'Experience  here  has 
taught  me  the  difference.  This  was  more  my  own  theory.  (You 
mean  that  when  you  were  in  the  body  you  misunderstood  the 
communications  ?)  Yes  often,  especially  when  I  was  not  feeling 
well.  (The  thoughts  of  the  communicating  spirit  got  confused 
with  yours?)  I  mean  of  course  to  go  back  to  the  body  i.e.,  to  go 

back  to  my  earthly  experience Yes  and  not  so  much  that 

altogether  as  that  I  misunderstood.  (You  misunderstood  your- 
self, so  to  speak.)  Certainly,  materially.  (You  had  your  own 
theory  and  misinterpreted  the  communicator's  meaning?)  Yes 
exactly,  as  I  thought  this  very  strongly  I  felt  sure  of  having  been 
told  this.  (Were  all  those  physical  phenomena  that  you  got  due 
to  spirits  ?)  No  not  all.  They  were  due  to  material  causes,  etc. 
as  well.  (Do  you  mean  persons  in  the  body  produced  them?) 
Not  at  all,  I  mean  to  say  that  from  the  energy  which  they  took 
from  my  own  body,  medium  power  etc.  they  were  moved.  (Were 
they  moved  by  the  action  of  spirits  ?)  Action  of  spirits  ?  Oh  yes. 
(I'll  state  my  impression.  Certain  spirits  used  the  '  electrical ' 
in  connection  with  your  body  to  produce  the  physical  move- 
ments.) Yes,  this  is  what  they  did.  Objects  etc.  raps  . . .  (If  you 
have  anything  special  to  say  to  us  we  shall  be  glad  to  hear  it,  but 
if  not,  we  have  something  especial  which  we  wish  you  to  do  for 
us.)  Well  [writing  begins  to  look  dreamy]  I  must  say  that  I 
will  have  many  things  special  to  say  to  you,  but  I  am  forced  to 
admit  that  this  is  all  new  to  me  now  and  it  seems  very  strange 
indeed ...  I  am  (we  shall  be  grateful  to  you  for  help  in  proving 
to  the  world  the  truth  of  spirit  communications.)  Yes,  glad  I 
will  be  to  be  able.  (Can't  read  that  word)  enabled  to  communi- 
cate, giving  tests  etc.  in  my  own  language.  (Do  you  think  you 
could  translate  some  Greek  into  English?)  Do  what?  Greek 
. . .  why  I  used  to  be  as  familiar  with  Greek  as  English.  (Better 
wait  for  next  time.)  Well,  yes.  (Think  up  your  Greek  and  the 
next  time  we  will  give  you  some  to  translate.  Everybody  knows 
that  the  medium  does  not  know  Greek  and  if  you  could  translate 
some  for  us  it  would  be  good  proof)  what  could  a  medium  have 
to  do  with  me  and  my  Greek.  [R.  H.  explains  further  that  proofs 
must  be  got  that  the  medium's  manifestations  are  not  fraudu- 
lent.] Well  I  suppose  they  said  the  same  of  me.  (Mr.  Moses, 


Ch.  XXXV]    Self -Contradictory  Evidence  Negligible      547 

aren't  the  conditions  getting  strange?  Don't  you  think  you  had 
better  go  now  and  come  to  us  another  time  ?)  Yes  I  do  [scrawls] 
auf  wiedersehen '  (auf  wiedersehen.)  " 

Professor  Newbold  comments : 

"  In  this  case  we  have  the  difficulties  which  attach  to  the  spir- 
itistic theory  brought  out  in  the  highest  relief.  The  general 
tenor  of  the  communications,  the  allusion  to  Mr.  Speer,  the  re- 
ception of  the  names  of  Myers  and  Hodgson,  have  an  air  of  veri- 
similitude. The  communicator  then  gives  us,  with  the  most 
solemn  asseveration  of  their  accuracy  and  with  apparent  con- 
sciousness of  the  importance  of  his  statements  to  a  cause  which 
he  had  in  life  much  at  heart,  three  names  which  the  real  Mr. 
Moses  must  have  known  and  which  of  all  possible  things  would 
seem  to  be  the  hardest  for  the  spirit  to  forget — the  names  of  the 
spirit  friends  who,  as  he  claims,  opened  his  eyes  while  still  on 
earth  to  the  realities  of  the  eternal  life.  And  not  one  of  those 
names  is  true  or  has  the  least  semblance  of  truth !  Furthermore, 
of  all  the  points  touched  upon  during  the  sitting  this  was  the 
only  one  that  was  unknown  to  both  the  sitters — another  item  in 
favor  of  the  telepathic  theory.  To  my  mind  this  failure  on  the 
part  of  the  alleged  Moses  is  an  obstacle  to  the  acceptance  of  the 
spiritistic  theory  which  has  not  as  yet  been  set  aside  and  which 
must  be  satisfactorily  explained  before  that  theory  can  be  re- 
garded as  meeting  the  requirements  of  the  case." 

My  theory,  if  you  care  to  know  it,  is,  as  before  stated,  that 
we  are  not  yet,  if  ever  in  this  life,  going  to  have  absolute 
verification.  But  if  the  case  for  survival  were  before  any 
court,  the  part  of  Moses'  evidence  relating  to  Imperator  &  Co. 
would  simply  be  "  stricken  out "  as  self-contradictory,  and  the 
jury  would  be  directed  to  decide  on  whatever  evidence  might 
be  left.  The  fact  of  his  self-contradiction  would  probably  be 
held  to  weaken,  but  not  to  destroy,  the  rest  of  his  evidence. 
This  of  course  would  include  what  is  not  self-contradictory, 
and  that  would  have  weight  where  it  is  backed  up  by  such 
witnesses  as  are  cited  for  most  of  the  occurrences  I  have  re- 
ported from  Moses. 

Moses  was  a  man  living  more  than  most  other  respectable 
people  of  recent  times,  in  imaginations  and,  probably,  illusions. 
Such  a  man's  testimony  may  be  good  or  may  be  bad.  A  court 
would  consider  it  when  corroborated,  but  no  court  would  pay 
any  attention  to  it  when  respectably  contradicted,  especially  by 
himself.  Is  it  not  possible  that  the  psychical  researchers  pay 
too  much  attention  to  that  part  of  it  in  the  Imperator  case  ? 


548  Professor  Newbold's  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

Professor  Newbold's  notes  continue :  CASE  XIII.     (Pr.XTV,45f .) 
Apparent  Knowledge  of  Foreign  Languages. 

" At  the  sitting  of  June  22nd ...  I  asked  G.  P 

"  (Will  you  translate  Greek  for  me  ?)  '  Certainly  Greek.  (You 
remember  it  ?)  I  ought  to.  [I  then  said  the  first  scrap  of  Greek 
that  happened  to  come  into  my  head: — Ildrep  fauv  6  kv  Tolf 
ovpavoif.~]  (Did  you  catch  it?)  No,  not  exactly,  slowly,  (ndrcp), 
Parter ...  I  say . . .  Pae . . .  Pater . . .  pater . . .  good  ( fa™  )  hemon 
. . .  [illegible]  he  ...  hemon  . . .  urano  is  ...  and  translation . . . 
Good . . .  love  [  ?]  [illegible]  Love  [  ?]  Love  [?]...  father  is  in 
. . .  that  is  right . . .  (All  right  but  go  ahead.)  I  cannot  quite, 

catch  that  B . . .  yes  . . .  Patience  . . .  well  you  have  it  B— — . 

[Throughout,  both  Mr.  O and  I  frequently  repeated  the 

words  and  spelled  them  both  in  Greek  and  English.]  Father  is 

in ...  tois  ou  ou  nois  our . . .  B .  Patience  my  boy . . .  Father 

is  in  Heavens.  (One  word  is  left  out,  George.)  Spell  it  slowly. 
(Greek  or  English?)  Greek  of  course.  [We  do  so,  fain.] 
Father  is  in  the  Heaven  ...  I  [do]  not  catch  [it]  . . .  slowly  now, 
speak  those  letters  separately  my  boy ...  ae  ...  emon.  (Rough 
breathing,  now,  fauv. )  Heaven . . .  Yes  . . .  too  bad  old  chap . . . 
[I  read  bad  as  '  hard.']  Bad  I  say,  I'll  catch  it.  [Hand  points 

to  O .]  Now  you  say  it,  let  me  see  if  it  will  reach  me  any 

better.  [O says  it.  Hand  gesticulates  and  twists  so  as  to 

get  O 's  mouth  close  to  outer  side  of  hand  just  below  the 

root  of  little  finger.]  My  ear.  [I  explain  he  means  that  his 
spirit  ear  is  located  there.]  Certainly,  my  ear  . . .  E  M  O  . . .  that 
is  what  bothers  me  . . .  Father  is  ...  was  . . .  now  ...  no  ...  Father 
. . .  our.  [Quickly  and  with  excitement.]  OUR  O  U.  [Then 
slowly  and  reverently,  in  capital  letters.]  OUR  FATHER 
ISINHEAVEN.  (Good.)  [We  all  shake  hands  over  it.] 
(W.  N. :  We  generally  put  it,  '  Our  Father  who  art  in  Heaven.') 
[Excitement.]  Yes,  I  remember  that  too.  Well,  if  you  only 
knew  how  difficult  it  is  to  catch  the  sound  of  your  voices  you 
would  wonder  how  I  could  speak  at  all  to  you  because  I  have 
difficulty  in  making  you  hear  also,  when  a  thing  is  very  clear  to 
me.  (Shall  we  try  another?)  One  more  (Shall  it  be  in  Latin?) 
...yes.  (What  pronunciation  did  you  use,  Roman,  English,  or 
Continental  ?)  Roman.  I  asked  for  Greek,  but  never  mind  old 
chap  . . .  wait ...  I  am  not  quite  satisfied  . . .  But  you  mentioned 
the  fact  which  I  wished  to  explain.  (Go  ahead  then  and  ex- 
plain.) [Slowly.]  WHO  ART  IN...  OK.  fire  away...' 
[We  have  scarcely  given  the  new  sentence  Tu  ne  cede  malis  sed 
contra  audentior  Ho  before  G.  P.  changes  the  subject  by  intro- 
ducing two  or  three  Latin  and  French  words  which  he  knows 

will  be  significant  to  me  but  not  to  Mr.  O .  He  then  asks 

that  Mr.  O should  go  out,  and  begins  writing  upon  a  topic 

which  he  does  not  wish  him  to  know  of.] 

"  This  case  is  more  significant  than  the  others  because  it  does 


Ch.  XXXV]         G.  P.,  Moses,  and  GreeTc  549 

seem  that  the  writer  has  some  knowledge  of  Greek,  whereas  the 
familiar  phrase  before  used  might  be  picked  up  by  anybody.  It 
is  also  difficult  to  explain  this  translation  by  the  telepathic  the- 
ory. The  writer  seems  not  to  recognize  the  familiar  words  but 
to  translate  afresh  from  the  words  he  hears;  if  it  were  merely 
reflected  from  my  mind  one  would  hardly  expect  it  to  take  this 
new  form.  [Italics  mine.  H.H.] 

"In  order  to  test  G.  P.'s  knowledge  of  Greek  still  further  I 
wrote  a  sentence,  making  the  first  three  words  give  the  keynote 
of  the  whole,  using  very  simple  and  familiar  words,  and  pur- 
posely choosing  the  thought  from  the  group  that  was  upper- 
most in  the  minds  of  the  writers.  The  sentence  was: — 
Owe  Iffri  Qdvarof  al  yap  ruv  QVTJTUV  ^f^ei  C"^"  £<->oiv  addvarov,  aidiov,  fiandptov. 
We  first  gave  this  to  G.  P.  at  the  sitting  of  June  25th,  1895 
[Present:  K.  H.  and  W.  R.  N.].  At  our  suggestion  G.  P.  calls 
the  alleged  Mr.  Moses  to  help  translate  it.  The  result  is  con- 
fusion worse  confounded.  Apparently  the  writers  cannot  hear 
what  we  say,  QdvaTof  is  at  first  written  fanois.  In  this  confusion 
words  and  sentences  occur  which  appear  to  emanate  from  Moses, 
such  as  *  I  could  in  time  recall  all  the  Greek  I  ever  taught  and 
why  should  I  not,' '  It  seems  like  awaking  from  a  dream  to  recall 
this  to  mind.'  When  the  writer  finally  gets  the  word  OVK  he 
translates  it  '  light,'  apparently  from  association  with  the  Latin 
word  'lux.'  On  June  26th  and  27th,  further  unsuccessful  at- 
tempts at  translation  were  made.  G.  P.  said  that  he  remembered 
his  Greek  well  enough  when  he  was  away  from  the  '  light '  but 
the  effort  of  communicating  confused  him  and  drove  it  out  of 
his  head.  On  July  1st,  at  a  sitting  at  which  Dr.  Hodgson  only 
was  present,  and  in  the  midst  of  a  communication  from  G.  P. 
upon  another  topic,  the  following  interruption  occurs : — 

"'Who  said  there  was  no  death?  [Hand  moves  forward  as 
though  '  speiring  '  into  the  '  vacant  space.']  Moses  (Ask  Moses 
what  he  means  by  that.)  Well,  you  interrupt  me.  Well,  I  must 
say  old  chap  (I  did  not  mean  to  interrupt  you.)  No  not  you 
H  . . .  Moses  . . .  Ouk  esti  thanatos.  Moses  (that's  first  rate.  Is 
this  Mr.  Moses  translating?)  Ouk  esti  thanatos.  There's  no 
death.  Repeat  it  to  me  in  Greek  Hodgson  for  him.  [R.  H.  re- 
peats, says  it  is  correct  and  suggests  getting  the  rest  of  the  pas- 
sage translated.]  Come  H.  Come  here  a  moment.  Hurry  up 
H.  [R.  II.  repeats  the  rest  of  the  passage.] 

" '  Again  . . .  Good  oh  good  may  God  preserve  you  always  H., 
and  keep  you  alive  on  earth  until  you  have  accomplished  a  thor- 
ough work.  I'll  help  you  in  every  way  possible  (Shall  I  repeat 
the  Greek  again?)  Yes,  something  new  . . .  Yes  he's  listening . . . 
too  fast  H  . . .  wait . . .  ready  he  has  it  very  nearly  . . .  not  the  last 
H  ...  no  before  . . .  yes  . . .  not  quite  . . .  got  it.  [R.  H.  had  been 
repeating  the  first  five  words  only  several  times.]  I'll  go  now 
and  translate  it  and  return  sir.' 

"  This  promise  was  never  kept  and  we  heard  no  more  of  the 


550  Professor  Newlold's  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

Greek.    At  later  sittings  other  matters  came  to  the  front  and 
Moses  did  not  reappear  to  complete  the  translation." 

But  that  sudden  "  Ouk  esti  thanatos,"  a  dozen  lines  back, 
shows  that  there  is  a  real  mystery,  and  not  a  plain  failure. 

On  the  Piper  manifestations  up  to  this  time,  Podmore  had 
an  article  in  the  same  volume  with  Prof.  Newbold's  report — 
Pr.  XIV,  which  he,  if  alive,  probably  would  not  write  to-day. 
Like  everything  of  his,  however,  it  is  well  worth  reading. 
I  have  space  for  but  a  few  extracts. 

(Pr.XIV,50) :  "  Is  it  not  conceivable  that  the  whole  of  the 
information  given  in  the  trances  may  have  been  acquired  by 
normal  means,  either  by  unconscious  elaboration  of  hints  unde- 
signedly  furnished  by  the  sitter,  or  by  a  deliberate  system  of 
private  inquiry  ? " 

No,  gentle  spirit,  it  is  not.  The  day  when  you  wrote  that 
is  past.  I  find  that  I  was  crass  enough,  when  I  first  read  it, 
to  write  in  the  margin :  "  Comical."  It  was  not  so  comical 
when  written  several  years  before. 

Podmore's  essay  contains  an  interesting  account  of  Alexis 
Didier,  a  clairvoyant  of  seventy  years  ago.  He  intimates  that 
certain  remarkable  manifestations  "only  prove  .  .  .  that 
Alexis's  Intelligence  Department  was  up  to  date."  Opposite 
this  I  find  my  comment :  "  This  explanation  is  more  credu- 
lous than  faith  in  telopsis."  While  I  have  tried  to  keep  an 
open  mind,  I  have  not  succeeded  in  keeping  free  from  similar 
impressions  regarding  some  views  of  many  critics,  not  only 
of  telopsis,  but  of  most  of  the  phenomena  described  in  the 
Pr.  S.  P.  R.  The  genuineness  of  those  phenomena  has  passed 
the  examination  of  many  of  the  best  contemporary  minds, 
and  whatever  may  be  their  ultimate  explanation,  in  regard 
to  them  in  general  it  is  too  late  for  other  fine  minds  to  waste 
themselves  over  the  hypothesis  of  fraud. 

Podmore  goes  over  the  performance  of  several  other  noted 
telopsists,  and  compares  them  with  Mrs.  Piper  as  follows  (Pr. 
XIV,  78) : 

"  On  the  almost  inconceivable  hypothesis  that  Mrs.  Piper  has 
obtained  all  this  information  fraudulently,  we  can  but  view  with 
amazement  her  artistic  restraint  in  the  use  of  proper  names; 
her  masterly  reticence  on  dates  and  descriptions  of  houses  and 


Ch.  XXXV]    Dramatization  Most  Convincing  551 

such  concrete  matters,  which  form  the  stock-in-trade  of  the 
common  clairvoyante ;  the  consummate  skill  which  has  enabled 
her  to  portray  hundreds  of  different  characters  without  ever  con- 
fusing the  role,  to  utilize  the  stores  of  information  so  labori- 
ously acquired  without  ever  betraying  the  secret  of  their  origin." 

"  The  consummate  skill  which  has  enabled  her  to  portray 
hundreds  of  different  characters  without  ever  confusing  the 
role."  Here,  while  showing  himself  profoundly  impressed 
with  Mrs.  Piper's  telopsis,  he  barely  touches,  but  with  a 
master  touch,  upon  what  impresses  me  as  of  vastly  more 
importance  than  all  the  other  features  of  her  manifestations 
put  together.  This  feature  has  also  been  little  more  than 
touched  upon  by  the  other  commentators  with  the  exception 
of  Hodgson,  and  later  Sir  Oliver  Lodge.  The  neglect  of 
it  by  so  many  who  have  paid  close  attention  to  the  matter 
seems  strange.  But  it  is  touched  upon  by  all,  just  as  the 
cosmic  soul  and  its  inflow,  which  seems  to  me  the  funda- 
mental correlator  of  all  the  phenomena,  is  touched  upon  by 
all — and  applied  throughout  by  none. 

The  details  of  the  so-called  "  evidential "  matter  bearing  on 
the  survival  of  death  seem  to  me  so  nearly  balanced  for  and 
against,  that,  so  far,  they  are  hardly  worth  taking  into 
account — that  is,  hardly  worth  taking  into  account  unless  we 
include  among  them  the  dramatic  quality.  If  that  dramatic 
quality  is  regarded  as  a  mere  manifestation  of  human  capacity 
(even  when  the  question  is  begged  by  calling  it  subliminal), 
and  that  capacity  in  a  woman  otherwise  of  but  average  quali- 
ties, it  is,  to  me  at  least,  a  marvel  so  overwhelming  that,  with 
one  exception,  the  suggestions  to  account  for  it  are  by  contrast 
less  than  pigmy.  But  that  excepted  suggestion  is  equally 
overwhelming:  it  is  the  so-called  spiritistic  manifestation  aa 
a  function  of  the  cosmic  soul.  Telopsis,  telakousis,  dreams, 
possession — the  whole  business — give  evidence  of  it.  And 
beside  its  solitary  and  majestic  adequacy,  the  "evidential" 
obstacles  to  it  often  appear  to  sink  into  nothingness. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

FARTHER  EXTRACTS  FROM  PROFESSOR  NEWBOLD'S 
NOTES 

Introductory 

PROFESSOR  NEWBOLD  has  most  kindly  volunteered  to  place 
at  my  disposal  the  original  notes  from  which  he  prepared  his 
paper  in  Pr.  S.  P.  E.  XIV  that  served  me  as  the  basis  for 
the  preceding  chapter.  That  paper  embraced  but  a  small  part 
of  the  notes  of  the  sittings :  some  of  them  were  deferred  be- 
cause of  private  considerations  which  time  has  partly  removed, 
and  I  have  found  not  a  little  of  the  unpublished  portion  now 
available  for  publication,  and  well  deserving  of  attention ;  but 
of  course  the  best  parts  are,  as  usual,  unpublishable  because 
they  are  too  intimate. 

These  notes  are  the  only  full  ones  (except  those  of  my  own 
sitting)  that  I  have  ever  seen.  Of  course,  compared  with  the 
parts  selected  for  printing,  the  sittings  as  a  whole  are  poor. 
But  the  long  stretches  of  confusion  and  seeming  twaddle  have 
given  me  a  stronger  impression  than  I  ever  had  from  the 
more  coherent  and  significant  portions  printed,  that  much  of 
the  matter  does  come,  but  under  difficulties,  from  some  source 
outside  of  either  medium  or  sitter  or  other  incarnate  intelli- 
gences. 

I  shall  have  occasion  to  refer  to  these  notes  several  times, 
and  will  allude  to  them  as  the  Newbold  Notes. 

The  deferred  matter  of  the  Newbold  Notes  is  interesting 
mainly  from  the  alleged  appearance  of  George  Eliot  and 
Walter  Scott  as  controls,  and  from  more  detailed  expressions 
by  the  Imperator  controls  than  have  yet  been  printed  in  the 
Pr.  S.  P.  R.  To  my  taste  the  Eliot  and  Scott  matter  savors 
very  little  of  the  reputed  authors.  And  yet  assuming  for  the 
moment  that  our  great  authors  survive  in  a  fuller  life,  pre- 
sumably they  would  have  to  communicate  under  very  em- 
barrassing conditions :  for  not  only  would  they  have  to  cramp 

552 


Ch.  XXXVI]      The  Alleged  George  Eliot  553 

themselves  to  produce  work  comprehensible  here,  but  that  Sys- 
tem of  Things  which  I  am  forced  to  harp  upon,  would  have 
to  limit  them  lest  their  competition  should  upset  the  whole 
system  of  our  literary  development,  or  rather  would  have  in- 
volved a  different  one  from  the  beginning. 

To  me  most  of  the  Imperator  matter  is  trash,  but,  as  we  have 
seen  a  couple  of  chapters  earlier,  Hodgson  did  not  so  regard 
it,  and  he  was  a  man  to  be  reckoned  with;  and  if  I  were  a 
clergyman  of  the  Methodist  Church,  or  perhaps  some  other, 
I  might  regard  it  very  differently. 

My  first  reading  of  the  alleged  George  Eliot  matter  inclined 
me  to  scout  it  entirely.  It  is  certainly  not  in  all  particulars 
what  that  great  soul  would  have  sent  from  a  better  world  if 
she  had  been  permitted  to  communicate  anything  more  pro- 
found than  we  have  been  left  to  find  out  for  ourselves,  or  even 
if  she  had  had  the  commonplace  chance  to  revise  her  manu- 
script. But  on  reflection  I  realized  that,  although  the  matter 
came  through  Mrs.  Piper,  it  could  not  have  come  from  her, 
wherever  it  came  from;  and  that  if  George  Eliot  were  com- 
municating tidings  naturally  within  our  comprehension,  and 
merely  descriptive  of  superficial  experience  as  distinct  from 
reflection,  and  were  communicating,  through  a  poor  tele- 
phone, words  to  be  recorded  by  an  indifferent  scribe,  this 
material  would  not  seem  absolutely  incongruous  with  its 
alleged  source,  and  to  a  reader  knowing  that  the  stuff  claimed 
to  be  hers,  might  possibly  suggest  the  weakest  possible  dilution 
or  reflection  of  her.  Yet  she  calls  Imperator  "  His  Holiness  " 
and  says  he  is  "  of  God  "  and  holds  communion  with  God  daily 
and  passes  along  results,  etc.,  etc. — all  of  it  the  sort  of  anthro- 
pomorphism that  might  be  expected  from  the  average  medium 
or  average  sitter,  but  not  from  George  Eliot. 

And  now,  since  writing  the  last  paragraph  and  going 
through  the  notes  half  a  dozen  times  more,  I  have  about  con- 
cluded, or  perhaps  worked  myself  up  to  the  conclusion,  that 
if  a  judicious  blue  pencil  were  to  take  from  them  what  could 
be  attributed  to  imperfect  means  of  communication,  and  what 
could  be  considered  as  having  slopped  over  from  the  medium, 
there  would  be  a  pretty  substantial  and  not  unbeautiful  resid- 
uum which  might,  without  straining  anything,  be  taken  for 


554  Farther  Extracts  from  Newbold's  Notes  [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

a  description  by  George  Eliot,  of  the  heaven  she  would  find 
if,  as  begins  to  seem  possible,  she  and  Moses  and  Hodgson  and 
the  rest  of  us,  have  or  are  to  have  heavens  to  suit  our  respec- 
tive tastes.  But  what  would  have  to  be  taken  out  is  often 
ludicrously  incongruous  with  George  Eliot,  and  taking  it  out 
would  certainly  be  open  to  serious  question. 

Yet  whatever  may  be  the  qualities,  merits,  or  demerits  of 
this  "  George  Eliot "  matter,  what  character  it  has  is  its  own, 
and  different  materially  from  any  I  have  seen  recorded  from 
any  other  control.  What  is  vastly  more  important,  despite 
the  lapses  in  knowledge,  taste,  and  style,  which  negative  its 
being  the  unmodified  production  of  George  Eliot,  it  neverthe- 
less presents,  me  judice,  the  most  reasonable,  suggestive,  and 
attractive  pictures  of  a  life  beyond  bodily  death  that  I  know 
of:  it  is  not  a  reflection  of  previous  mythologies,  it  is  con- 
gruous with  the  tastes  of  what  we  now  consider  rational  beings, 
and  might  well  fill  their  desires;  and  it  tallies  with  our  ex- 
periences— in  dreams.  Yet  it  is  not  a  great  feat  of  imagina- 
tion, but  in  recent  times  no  great  genius  has  attacked  the  sub- 
ject, and  George  Eliot  would  not  have  been  expected  to  devote 
her  imagination  to  it,  which  raises  a  slight  presumption  that 
what  is  told  is  really  told  by  her  from  experience. 

If  I  had  to  venture  a  guess  as  to  how  it  came  into  existence, 
it  would  be  something  like  the  guesses  I  make  below  with  a 
better  basis  of  fact,  regarding  Scott,  and  would  give  some 
backing  to  a  conception  which  perhaps  we  will  find  worth 
considering  later  (in  my  last  three  chapters) — that  the  future 
life  is  a  continuation  of  the  dream  life  we  know  here.  In  this 
case,  I  guess  that  somebody  within  range,  possibly  Mrs.  Piper 
herself,  had  been  reading  George  Eliot,  or  about  George  Eliot, 
and  the  muskmelon  pollen  had  affected  the  cucumbers.  Some 
real  George  Eliot  influence  may  have  flowed  in  too,  though 
I  don't  state  this  as  a  conviction  that  any  did. 

I  cannot  say  even  as  much  for  the  Walter  Scott  matter, 
though  I  would  say  something  of  the  same  sort,  which  it  is 
not  worth  while  to  repeat.  The  Scott  dreams  are  still  less 
characteristic  of  the  alleged  author,  contain  a  much  larger 
proportion  of  absurdities,  and  are  in  every  way  even  less  sat- 
isfying and  suggestive.  And  yet  the  individuality  of  the  style, 


Ch.  XXXVI]       Individuality  of  Controls  555 

such  as  it  is — its  difference  from  the  alleged  George  Eliot 
style,  is  obvious.  The  more  I  read  of  all  this  mediumistic 
literature,  the  more  I  am  impressed,  despite  the  wishy-washi- 
ness  of  most  of  it,  with  the  fact  that  each  control  has  "  thon's  " 
own  style,  whether  it  is  worth  having  or  not,  and  has  it  to  a 
degree  whose  creation  would  tax  the  most  ingenious  dramatists 
or  novelists — perhaps  even  be  beyond  them.  This  is  an  im- 
portant point,  and  I  am  not  apt  to  do  too  much  to  impress  it. 
I  have  just  happened  to  read  a  criticism  of  a  translation  made 
many  years  ago — not  the  one  soon  to  appear — of  Gobineau's 
Renaissance.  The  book  is  made  up  of  imaginary  conversa- 
tions, something  like  Lander's,  between  Savonarola,  Caesar 
Borgia,  Julius  II,  Leo  X,  Michelangelo,  and  all  sorts  of  con- 
temporaries. The  critic  objected  that  the  vocabularies  of  all 
the  speakers  were  the  same.  This  is  a  striking  illustration 
of  the  difficulty  of  giving  variety  to  characters.  To  assume 
that  Mrs.  Piper  and  Mrs.  Thompson  and  several  other  mediums 
themselves  create  the  distinct  individualities  they  portray, 
would  be  the  height  of  absurdity.  Now  if  they  don't,  who 
does  ?  That  a  variety  of  sitters,  each  with  distinct  recollections, 
should  be  able  to  do  it,  is  far  less  absurd,  but  still  presents 
grave  difficulties.  But  supposing  it  true,  who  under  the  sun 
made  Phinuit  ?  Moses  may  have  made  Imperator  and  Rector, 
but  not  the  Rector  we  have  seen  described  by  James.  James 
and  "  sundry  critical  and  fastidious  sitters  "  made  him,  unless 
God  did.  Mrs.  Piper  certainly  did  not.  My  vote,  if  I  must  vote, 
is  for  James  and  the  sitters.  But  I  can't  vote  that  the  sitters 
made  G.  P.  and  Hodgson  (whom  we  will  meet  as  a  control 
later)  or  perhaps  anybody  that  I  know  once  had  a  personality. 

Scott  takes  Newbold  and  Hodgson  on  imaginary  journeys 
through  space ;  describes  the  planets,  calling  the  sun  one,  and 
speaking  of  "Heaven"  as  another;  gets  into  Saturn  without 
displaying  any  consciousness  of  its  rings,  talks  nonsense  about 
them  when  reminded  of  them  by  the  sitter;  says  there  are 
monkeys  in  the  sun,  and  explains  it  away  when  challenged ; 
vindicates  his  claim  to  being  a  Scotchman  by  saying  "  bonnie  " 
once,  and  "  good-morrow  "  habitually ;  and  does  give  perhaps 
a  very  faint  suggestion  of  Sir  Walter's  narrative  style,  but 
none  whatever  of  his  sense  of  humor. 

With  our  present  knowledge,  the  rodomontade  attributed  to 


556   Farther  Extracts  from  Newlold's  Notes  [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

Scott  provokes  a  ready  hypothesis.  Whether  the  future  will 
confirm  it  is  another  matter.  Hodgson,  the  sitter,  tells  the 
Scott  control  that  he  had  lately  been  much  absorbed  in  Scott's 
life  and  letters.  This,  apparently,  had  telepathically  set  the 
medium  going.  Who  composed  the  story  of  the  journeys  to 
the  planets  is  also  another  matter :  it  hardly  reads  like  Scott, 
and  is  not  to  be  thought  of  as  Mrs.  Piper.  But  Hodgson  was 
entirely  up  to  it,  and  in  the  absence  of  farther  knowledge,  my 
guess  would  be  that  he  involuntarily  reeled  it  off  telepathically 
through  Mrs.  Piper.  This  does  not  preclude  my  also  guessing 
(I  don't  say  believing)  that  a  Scott  influence  of  some  kind — 
more  than  a  reflection  and  Hodgson's  memories — may  have 
flowed  in  too.  The  style  of  the  production  is  as  far  as  possible 
from  Hodgson,  and  much  more  suggestive,  or  rather  I  should 
say,  less  unsuggestive,  of  Scott. 

Stainton  Moses  turns  up  several  times,  and  apparently  a 
result  of  his  appearing  in  the  Newbold  sittings  was  the  later 
appearance,  through  Mrs.  Piper,  of  controls  claiming  to  be 
the  old  Moses-Imperator  gang.  Imperator  discoursed  ad  nau- 
seam on  Old  Testament  matters,  denying  many  statements  and 
taking  others  extra-seriously,  harped  constantly  on  Melchi- 
zedek,  and  hinted  that  Melchizedek  and  Mrs.  Piper  are  "  two 
of  a  kind."  All  this  harping  can  hardly  be  attributed  to 
Hodgson,  Newbold,  or  Mrs.  Piper.  It  seems  as  if  the  post- 
carnate  Moses  must  have  taken  a  hand :  it  is  a  very  hard  nut 
to  crack.  Imperator  also  uses  "  evolute  "  as  a  verb,  and  inflects 
it.  And  here  is  a  very  suggestive  point.  There  are  some  half 
a  dozen  controls  in  the  series  of  sittings  from  which  I  am  now 
quoting — alleged  to  be  persons  living  at  various  periods,  and  of 
various  varieties  and  degrees  of  culture,  and  virtually  all  of 
them,  even  George  Eliot,  employ  that  noun  "  evolute,"  as  a 
verb  in  place  of  evolve,  although  the  two  words  have  no  legiti- 
mate meaning  in  common.  That  so  many  of  the  real  persons 
the  controls  professedly  represented  should  have  been  guilty  of 
such  a  solecism,  is  out  of  the  question.  Plainly  Mrs.  Piper 
had  an  attack  of  it,  just  as  she  apparently  had  an  attack  of 
Walter  Scott  through  Hodgson,  and  just  as  we  all  occasionally 
get  an  attack  of  some  word  or  other;  and  she,  as  we  all  do, 
mixed  it  in  with  her  dreams. 


Ch.  XXXVI]      The  Walter  Scott  Control  557 

The  later  sittings  of  this  series  abound  in  predictions  re- 
garding the  war  with  Spain  then  impending.  The  details 
had  little  if  any  relation  to  the  events  that  actually  occurred. 
One  of  the  consequences  was  to  be  "  the  greatest  purification 
and  spiritual  growth  that  the  world  has  [will  have?  H.H.] 
known  since  the  birth  of  Christ." 

These  controls  generally  indicated  the  primitive  theory  of 
Possession.  Phinuit,  despite  his  having  once  said  to  some 
control :  "  You  come  in  by  the  hands  and  I'll  go  out  by  the 
feet/'  claims  to  go  out  and  in  by  a  spiritual  umbilical  cord, 
such  as  that  by  which  various  persons  dreaming  themselves  to 
have  left  the  body,  still  see  themselves  connected. 

Alleged  Communications  from  Sir  Walter  Scott 
I  have  already  expressed  my  guess  as  to  the  source  of  these. 
The  introduction  of  this  Scott  control  was  peculiar  and 
suggestive.     As  already   stated,   Hodgson  was   absorbed   in 
Scott's  Life  and  Letters.    On  June  25,  1895,  appeared  (os- 
tensibly) Hodgson's  cousin  Fred  H (see  Chapter  XXIX) 

to  the  following  effect.  I  introduce  him  for  various  reasons, 
but  here  especially  for  his  assertion,  at  the  end  of  the  extract, 
regarding  his  residence.  That  seems  to  provide  Scott  with  a 
topic. 

June  25,  1895. 

" '  Say,  how  you  was,  how  was  you ...  do  you  see  me . . .  H 

...(R.    H.:    Hello   Fred,    what's   the   news?)      [Fred    H , 

cousin  of  R.  H.  killed  in  Australia  about  1872  by  fall  in  gymna- 
sium fracturing  spine.]  Your  mother,  Aunt  Margaret,  is  not  at 
all  well  Dick  (What's  the  matter?)  Yes,  write  her  a  line,  will 
you, . . .  she  had  an  abscess  or  something  like  it  but  is  getting 

on  a  little  better  now (H. :  Have  you  been  there?)     Yes,  I 

have  just  returned  from  Australia  (Did  you  have  a  good  time?) 
Good  time  ?  Yes,  I  saw  Annie  [R.  H.'s  sister.]  [N.  makes  some 
remark]  who  was  that  said  yes  [Hand  H.H.]  [pounds].  (H. :  My 
friend  here  said  something.)  Not  much  (H. :  Oh  some  spirit 
spoke  to  you  ?)  Yes,  said  "  say  yes  this  way  "  [pounds  again  very 
heavily]  How  are  you  Dick  any  way  how  are  you?  (H. :  First 
rate,  taking  a  little  exercise,  bicycling  lately.)  What  is  that 
(Something  like  what  you  and  I  called  '  bonesbaking '  riding 
on  two  wheels.)  Oh,  fly  the  garter,  [a  game  at  which  F.  H.  was 
unusually  expert]  well  I'll  beat  you  at  it.  (H. :  Have  you  got 
track  of  my  affairs?)  Got,  well  I  should  smile  you  have  not 
half  lived  out  your  happy  days  (I  wish  I  were  over  there  with 


558   Farther  Extracts  from  Newlold's  Notes  [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

you  so  that  I  might  give  proof  of  my  identity)     What!  over 

here Well  it  is  all  right  where  you  are. . . .  Well  Dick  you 

dear  old  Bunt . . .  Bump  . . .  Got  it ...  t ...  yes . . .  yes  Bunto  [  ?] 
Yes  our  word  of ...  Well  you  do  not  really  signify  one  . . .  yet  I 
recall  it ...  hear . . .  you  are  not  so  insignificant  as  a  Bunit,  Not 
at  all.  I  do  not  say  BUNT  I  do  not . . .  Bunyet ...  Oh  there 
is  the  cow  . . .  Pull  her  tail  Dick . . .  [when  boys  F.  H.  once  in- 
duced R.  H.  to  do  it  and  he  was  of  course  kicked  over.]  [Isn't 
this  an  out-and-out  dream  ?  H.H.]  . . .  Well  you  old  Bunyet . . . 
yot . . .  why  can't  you  think  . . .  B  (H. :  You  mean  Bunyip  the 
bugaboo  of  the  Australian  natives?)  [Violent  pounding  and 
scrabbling]  Did  I  not  say  yet . . .  You  look  like  one  just  now  as 
I  see  you  . . .  yes . . .  why  did  ?  (H. :  How  are  they  all  in  Aus- 
tralia?) First  rate  (Ella,  Harry  and  all)  everyone ...  yes ... 
yes  . . .  (H. :  My  mother  will  not  pass  out  now?)  No — no — Star 
[They  had  spoken  of  this  before]  (Oh  you  mean  you  live  in  a 
star?)  Yes,  Mars '" 

June  25,  1895. 

After  other  communications  handwriting  changes,  becomes 
small  and  proceeds  slowly: 

" '  Scott,  Scott,  Scott,  I  am  extremely  happy  to  be  with  you 

sir I  just  strayed  in  here     (This  is   Sir  Walter  Scott?) 

Yes  sir,  I  strayed  [Then  H 's  allusion  to  Mars  apparently 

takes  effect.  H.H.]  . . .  for  a  moment  lend  me  your  attention 
when  you  wish  to  hear  anything  concerning  Mars — do  not  for- 
get to  call  for  me.  I  am ...  I  have  met  Mr.  Pelham  and  I  am 
enchanted  with  him,  intellectually  (Yes,  he's  a  splendid  fellow) 
very . . .  wonderfully  clever  sir  [of  N]  (This  is  a  friend  of  mine 
Sir  Walter, — Dr.  Newbold)  Pleased  to  meet  you  sir ...  Brain 
[we  read  this  Bone  and  ask  if  he  is  writing  Latin]  No  sir, 
Scotch  B  R  A I N  . . .  a  fine . . .  (You  mean  he  has  a  fine  brain  ?) 
Yes,  sir  meaning  Mr.  Pelham.  [Funny  to  descant  on  the  brain 
of  a  post-material  personage !  Yet  amid  all  the  phantasmagoria 
appear  many  indications  of  second  and  sublimated  editions  of 
bodies,  including  brains,  I  suppose  as  vehicles  for  thought,  just 
as  they  are  here.  H.H.]  . . .  well,  naturally  charming  (Will  you 
not  come  to-morrow  and  talk  to  Dr.  N.  ?)  Yes  sir.  I  would  be 
pleased  indeed.  (N. :  I  would  be  much  indebted  to  you  Sir 
Walter  if  you  would.)  Oh  I  should  be  most  happy  to  do  any- 
thing possible  for  you  or  the  assistance  [Does  he  mean  this  in 
the  French  sense  ?  If  so,  it  was  not  Mrs.  Piper.  H.H.]  . . .  any 
information  regarding  our  existence.  I  am  somewhat  interested 
in  your  friend  here  whom  I  have  heard  mention  my  name  upon 
several  occasions.  (H. :  I  have  been  much  interested  in  your 
life  and  letters.)  life  and  letters,  indeed.  (Yes,  they  have  been 
recently  published  and  I  was  especially  impressed  by  that  you 
wrote  to  a  lady  proposing  marriage.)  This  might  be  why  I  am 


Ch.  XXXVI]    Scott  Control  Describes  Mars  559 

so  much  attracted  to  you.  (I  felt  a  strong  feeling  for  you.) 
I  have  clearly  been  in  a  way  connected  with  you  (In  what 
special  way?)  Feeling,  circumstances,  etc.  (In  all  this  work?) 
I  have  also  assisted  you  in  writing  your  ideas.  (You  mean  you 
impress  your  thoughts  upon  me?)  Yes  sir  (I  hope  you  will 
continue  to  do  it)  pardon . . .  yes  sir  I  will  be  pleased  I  assure 
you  (Is  not  the  light  growing  dim?)  Yes  sir — good  morrow 
(Please  tell  Dr.  N.  to-morrow  about  Mars  and  the  condition  of 
your  life  over  yonder)  good  morrow — Walter  Scott.  [With  a 
dash  a  new  sprawling  script.]  ' ' 

June  26,  1895.  Present:  W.  R.  N. 

"To  G.  P.:  (Send  in  Sir  Walter.)  'Yes  certainly,  with  the 

greatest  pleasure  my  boy Well  this  is  a  cool  reception  (What 

do  you  mean  ?)  Well  I  am  only  talking  to  Scott — We  will  leave 
the  question  of  Pantheism  [Hand  beckons  to  invisible  Sir  Wal- 
ter. Some  initial  convulsion, — then  the  Sir  Walter  Script  be- 
gins, Hand  writes  steadily,  uniformly,  without  show  of  emotion, 
in  a  very  small  faint  script  [Counter  to  the  general  Piper  prac- 
tice. H.H.],  and  when  it  raps  assent  does  it  in  a  gentle  manner 
very  unlike  the  vigorous  blows  given  by  other  writers.]  ' ; 

" '  We  turn  our  air  ship  towards  the  planet  Mars  and  as  we 
draw  nearer  and  nearer,  we  begin  to  see  objects  and  people. 
We  then  look  again  down  upon  the  earth  and  then  into  Mars 
and  see  what  comparison  [N.  doesn't  decipher]  comparisons . . . 
(comparisons?)  No  not  8.  leave  it  out... we  can  make  as  to 
its  inhabitants  with  those  in  Mars  a  strange  looking  lot  of 
people,  very  dark  in  color.  They  seem  to  be  very  intelligent  yet 
not  altogether  like  our  friends  on  earth.  They  are  more  like 
the  animal  in  shape  (Do  they  stand  upright?)  Oh  yes,  are 
you  not  with  me,  sir  (I'm  simply  writing  my  question  so  as 
to  know  the  meaning  of  your  answer)  Oh  pardon . . .  well  of 
course  you  have  my  idea,  that  we  are  sailing,  you  as  a  man  on 
earth,  I  as  a  spirit  in  heaven,  sailing  through  the  spirit  world 
together,  only  I  am  illustrating  it  to  you  as  being  in  the  sky, 
do  you  understand ...  yes  sir...  (Can  you  describe  the  inhab- 
itants more  closely?)  Ah  yes  we  see  these  people  as  it  were 
half  man  half  animal  yet  wonderfully  advanced  with  their  in- 
ventions (What  are  the  canals  in  Mars?)  I  have  described 
the  roads,  walks,  the  icebergs  (You  haven't  described  them  to 
ns)  Oh  not ...  no  ...  you  don't  understand  sir  (I  beg  pardon 
for  the  interruption),  not  at  all  I  say  I  have  not ...  oh  well  I 
understand  from  my  friend,  Mr.  Pelham  that  you  have  dis- 
covered canals.  Yet  they  were  termed  . . .  what  did  you  term 
them  (canals)  Yes,  but  what  meaning  did  you  convey  to  the 
word  (None  at  all,  I  simply  use  the  word  to  indicate  the  appear- 
ance of  the  parallel  lines  seen  on  the  surface  of  the  planet) 
Oh  spots  on  the  sun — oh  reflection  only . . .  reflection  from  the 
sun.'" 


560   Farther  Extracts  from  Newl old's  Notes  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

June  27, 1895. 

"  [G.  P.  writes,  Ph.  still  talking.]    « How  are  you  B tell 

Ph.  to  keep  quiet,  you  see  I  do  not  wish  to  be  interrupted.  I 
have  many  things  of  importance  on  my  mind  and  wish  to  clear 
them.  You  forgot  to  call  me  back  old  chap.  (I  know  it  George, 
but  the  light  went  out  before  I  thought  of  it.)  I  saw  my  friend 
Scott  speaking  to  you.  Did  he  make  himself  understood  ?  (Yes 
indeed.  What  he  said  was  very  interesting  and  he  promised  to 
continue  it  to-day.)  Oh  and  he  will.  He  has  a  charming  char- 
acter and  has  had  a  wonderful  experience  of  very  long  duration. 
...OUK...OUK...  Now  .  .  .  Down  ...  N  o  ?  ...  yes  ... 
N  O  R . . .  O  U  K  [I  keep  repeating  the  phrase  ouk  esti  thanatos 
and  spelling  each  word  from  time  to  time.]  ' ' 

G.  P.  boggles  over  the  phrase  until  W.  E.  N.  suggests: 

" '  (Go  out  and  think  it  over  or  ask  someone  while  Sir  Walter 
talks)    I  do  not  need  to  do  this.    I  will  go  out  and  recall,  I  never 

need  ask 1  say,  B here  comes  Scott,  Adieu.     [Writing 

changes  to  characteristic  Scott  hand  as  used  in  former  sittings.] 
[Was  Mrs.  Piper  not  only  a  great  dramatist,  but  also  an  expert  in 
changing  handwriting?  H.H.]  Good  morrow  my  friend  I  am 
now  prepared  to  finish  my  discourse  or  description  of  spiritual 
beings,  existences,  etc.  Do  you  remember  where  I  left  off?  It 
was,  that  is  to  say  we  were,  in  the  planet  Mars.  The  lines  by  the 
way  sir, — come  with  me  again,  are  you  ready —  Well  the  lines 
or  spots,  so  to  speak,  are  not  satellites.  They  are  reflections 
from  the  sun.  (Reflections  of  what  ?)  [hand  ignores  the  question 
and  pursues  the  calm  and  even  tenor  of  its  way.]  Well  now 
we  wish  to  see  something  of  the  habitations  of  the  gentlemen 
who  inhabit  this  planet.  Their  houses  are  similar  to  those  on 
earth  yet  more  modern  and  much  less  complicated  in  structure. 
Do  you  wish  to  speak  to  me  sir  as  we  pass  ?  (Yes.  Of  what  are 
they  made  and  how?)  They  are  made  from  various  kinds  of 
material  such  as  brick,  stone,  etc.  (These  are  the  houses  on 
the  planet  Mars  of  which  you  are  speaking?)  I  am,  yet  we  do 
not  compare  them  exactly  with  those  on  earth.  They  are  made 
according  to  natural  causes  and  such  atmospheric  conditions  as 
it  is  necessary  from  such  materials.  (Tell  me  more  about  the 
atmospheric  conditions.)  I  think  that  I  have  done  so  upon 
other  occasions  sir,  and  were  you  the  gentleman  to  whom  I  gave 
them?  (Not  to  me,  Sir  Walter  but  to  a  friend  of  mine.  I  have 
read  what  you  said,  and  I  think  you  did  not  say  anything  of 
the  atmosphere.)  Well,  pardon  me  sir,  I  will  then.  The  planet, 
as  we  see  it  materially  is  rather  cold.  For  instance  there  are 
icebergs  and  many  of  them  on  this  planet  i.e.  on  some  parts  of 
it;  in  others  it  is  warmer  and  enough  so  to  produce  vegetation. 
There  are  some  very  beautiful  trees,  flowers,  etc.  (Is  the  climate 


Ch.  XXXVI]    Scott  Control  Describes  Jupiter  561 

fair  or  cloudy  ?)  Very  fair,  it  is  in  the  torrid  zone.  (You  mean 
it  is  fair  in  the  torrid  zone  of  Mars?)  Yes,  this  only  (Are 
there  inhabitants  in  other  planets?)  Such  as  Jupiter?  WeU  let 
me  ask  what  you  are  dreaming  about  sir  [I  misunderstand  and 
think  writer  is  reproving  me  for  asking  such  a  question  of 
Jupiter  since  I  knew  well  that  he  was  not  in  a  condition  to 
support  life.  So  I  say]  (I  said  nothing  of  Jupiter,  Sir  Walter; 
I  merely  asked  whether  there  is  life  in  any  other  planets.) 
There  was  a  little  misunderstanding  I  think,  as  we  are  now 
riding  through  the  air.  (I  beg  your  pardon;  go  on.)  we  now 
leave  the  planet  Mars  and  we  wish  to  visit  others.  First  we 

think  of  Jupiter.    Well  as  we  ride  we  begin  to  discern [for 

pencil] Thanks something  which  to  us  looks  like  a  dark 

jagged  ball  or  rock.  Well  as  we  draw  nearer  we  seem  to  discover 
smoke  as  it  seems,  then  still  more  of  the  darkness.  Now  we  are 
nearing  the  planet.  As  we  draw  nearer  we  begin  to  see  sparks 
which  reminds  us  of  fire.  Now  we  pass  through  a  tremendously 
stifling  atmosphere  (Not  stifling  to  you?)  Oh  no  sir,  I  am 
the  spirit  or  life,  you  are  the  material  man  whom  I  am  taking 
with  me  as  my  guest.  You  seem  choked,  and  yet  you  ask  me 
to  go  on.  Well,  now  we  wish  to  pass  through  this  fog  of  seem- 
ingly smoke,  fire  electricity,  as  Mr.  Pelham  terms  it.  I  bor- 
rowed the  phrase  sir,  [Electricity  cut  no  figure  in  Scott's  earthly 
life.  Evidential  touch!  H.H.]  and  now  we  begin  to  reach  the 
planet  Jupiter.  We  pass  around  the  surface  peeping  into  it ... 
onto  it ...  and  we  see  nothing  of  any  importance  except  the 
continual  sparks,  so  called,  which  conglomerate  together  and  as 
yet  are  in  a  very  unsettled  state  (Take  me  further.)  This  all 
seems  to  us  strange  and  interesting.  We  see  all  in  one  mass  a 
conglomeration  of  atmospheres  which  when  settled  in  one  body 
looks  like  a  planet.  (Then  Jupiter  is  not  solid?)  Not  at  all 
solid.  (Take  me  elsewhere,  especially  where  there  is  life.)  What 
is  the  general  idea  of  Jupiter  on  your  planet  sir?  (I  know  little 
astronomy  Sir  Walter,  but  I  think  Jupiter  is  believed  to  be  a 
red  hot  solid  surrounded  by  dense  clouds.)  But  it  is  not  at  all 
solid  as  we  can  pass  through  it.' " 

This  is  probably  distinctly  incorrect,  but  nothing  else  seems 
to  be,  so  far  as  it  goes.  It  is  a  little  strange  that  he  did  not 
speak  more  definitely  of  the  superficial  aspects  displayed  in  all 
the  pictures. 

There  are  perhaps  a  dozen  pages  of  this  sort  of  thing,  going 
through  the  rest  of  the  planets.  We  have  room  for  only  a 
scrap  or  two  more.  There  is  no  more  than  a  fortuitous  cor- 
respondence with  the  little  astronomy  I  know,  and  a  propor- 
tionate share  of  contradictions,  and  it  ends  up  with  (Professor 
Newbold  resuming) : 


562   Farther  Extracts  from  Newbold's  Notes  [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

"  (Take  me  where  there  is  life.)  '  Venus — (Good)  so  termed 
is  inhabited  [Medium's  head  falls  from  the  cushion.  I  say] 
(Wait  a  moment  Sir  Walter  while  I  fix  the  head  of  the  medium 
in  place.)  Yes  sir  [Hand  stops  writing  until  the  head  is  again 
firmly  set  in  place.  Phinuit  thanks  me  in  stifled  tones.  I  ask 
whether  the  light  is  going  out.  Hand  replies]  The  light  so 

called  ?    No  sir Venus  you  will  remember  on  earth  looks  like 

a  very  beautiful  and  bright  star. . . .  We  pass  through  a  long . . . 
of  light,  so  called  sky  and  we  pass  on  very  rapidly  until  we 

begin — are  you  tired  sir?     (No  indeed.     Go  on.)     to  feel 

very  much  pleased  with  the  atmospheric  conditions We  smell 

the  most  delightful  odors  possible  for  the  human  mind  to  under- 
stand or  sense.  Now  all  is  life,  light,  the  air  is  as  balmy  and 
soft  as  a  spring  morning  on  earth . . .  insects  of  all  kinds  and 
descriptions,  birds  of  every  known  [hand  hesitates  for  some  time 
and  then  writes]  description  (You  had  species  in  mind,  had 
you  not  ?)  species,  yes  sir,  this  was  exactly  the  expression  which 
I  wish  to  express  or  use — their  plumage  is  to  you  something 
magnificent  and  indescribable.  We  see  them  flitting  about  from 
one  place  to  another,  apparently  in  space,  yet  as  we  move  on  we 
begin  to  realize  that  we  are  approaching  something  more  tangi- 
ble. Now  we  see  the  heavens  aglow  with  light,  the  perfume 
heavenly.  The  atmosphere  warm,  balmy,  beautiful,  too  much 
so  to  put  in  words  and  express.  Now  we  feel  a  slight  breeze 
and  we  are  wafted  through  the  outer  rim  as  it  were  into  a 
perfect  little  heaven  by  itself.  Nothing  ever  realized  on  earth 
could  compare  with  this.  Now  we  see  no  one,  i.e.  no  living 
being  so  to  speak,  only  these  beautiful  creatures  the  trees  like 
wax,  the  flowers  like  the  true  soul  as  it  were,  they  are  so  really 
beautiful,  the  fields  are  one  mass  of  green . . .  yet  we  see  not 
a  man  anywhere.  We  wonder  where  they  all  are,  we  travel  for 
miles  and  miles,  yet  we  see  nothing  but  insects  and  birds  i.e. 
living.  We  wish  to  ascertain  why  this  is  thus  . . .  yes  sir ... 
why . . .  why . . .  because  of  the  marvelous  atmosphere.  They  are 
sensitive  to  this  and  cannot  survive  it.  (Did  they  ever  exist?) 
Oh  no,  sir  (You  mean  then  that  Venus  is  passing  through  a 
stage  analogous  to  the  carboniferous  era  on  the  earth?)  I  do, 
only  it  is  more  perfect  and  real  at  this  stage . . .  when  the  time 
comes  for  the  flowers  to  decay  they  simply  droop,  wither  and 
fall,  then  immediately  others  spring  up  and  fill  their  places. 
Now  we  stop  for  a  moment. . . .  Now  we  must  go  ...  pass  ...  on 
and  leave  this  beautiful  godlike  heaven  [Would  Sir  Walter  com- 
pare a  place  to  a  sentient  being?  H.H.]  or  planet  as  it  were  [my 
hand  is  resting  on  the  paper.  The  writing  collides  with  it,  stops, 
feels  it,  finger  by  finger,  writes:]  What  is  that  please,  sir?  (My 
hand.)  Best  not  disturb  me  [I  misunderstanding  explain  that 
I  lift  the  writing  hand  while  I  turn  the  pages  of  the  block  book] 
Oh  thanks  not  that  sir ;  it  was  here  [tapping  the  spot  where  my 
hand  had  rested]  it's  all  right  sir,  pardon  me  if  you  please. 


Ch.  XXXVI]    The  Sun,  and  Monkeys  in  It  563 

" ' We  move  out  of  Venus,  slowly,  unwillingly,  yet  on 

we  pass  until  we  have  reached  the  outer  sphere  again.  Now 
we  move  on  towards  the  sun,  but  at  first  we  feel  extremely  un- 
comfortable . . .  yet  we  begin  to  become  accustomed  to  the  atmos- 
phere and  now  on  we  go  ...  in  our  air  vessel  towards  the  sun . . . 
and  as  we  move  on  we  still  continue  to  feel  uncomfortable  until 
we  reach  this  planet,  when  the  atmosphere  begins  to  clear  a 
little.  Now  we,  excuse  the  mixture  of  nouns  and  pronouns,  sir, 
we  then  reach  the  sun,  and  we  feel  cold  (cold?)  Yes  sir  we  have 
passed  beyond  the  limit  of  the  former  planets  and  we  feel  the 
various  changes  as  we  move.  Now  the  extreme  change  takes 
place  and  we  feel  intensely  hot ...  we  do  not  wish  to  move  on, 
so  now  we  find  this  one  center  of  heat  (Can  you  a  spirit  feel 
the  heat  ?)  [Finger  points  deliberately  at  me,  then  hand  writes,] 
You,  yet  I  [I  express  comprehension]  pardon,  yes  sir,  yet  I  wish 

you  to  imagine  yourself  a  spirit  well  now (Sir  Walter  is  the 

sun  all  fire,  or  has  it  a  solid  core  ?)  The  word  is  not  familiar  to 
me,  sir.  [I  explain.]  Oh,  there  is  a  solid  body,  sir,  which  I 
am  now  going  to  take  you  to  see. . . .  Well  now  we  move  on  to- 
wards this  fire,  now  reach  its  borders  and  notwithstanding  the 
extreme  heat  we  pass  through  it  and  we  find  ourselves  upon  a 
solid  bed  of  hot  clay  or  sand.  This  is  caused  by  gravity  under- 
stand where  we  are  we  have  now  reached  the  limit,  we  find  it 
very  warm  and  deserted  like  a  deserted  island.  We  fail  to  find 
its  inhabitants  if  there  are  any  i.e.  if  it  has  any.  Now  we  see 
what  we  term  monkeys,  dreadful  looking  creatures,  black  ex- 
tremely black,  very  wild.  We  find  they  lire  in  caves  which  are 
made  in  the  sand  or  mud,  clay  etc.' " 

Touching  this  remarkable  piece  of  Natural  History,  Pro- 
fessor Newbold  says  (Pr.  XIV,  48)  : 

"  In  1895,  as  the  alleged  Walter  Scott  was  concluding  a  sitting 
he  told  me  that  there  were  monkeys  in  the  sun.  That  night 
while  writing  up  the  sitting  at  Dr.  Hodgson's  rooms,  ten  miles 
from  Mrs.  Piper,  Dr.  Hodgson  and  I  fell  to  laughing  over  this 
preposterous  statement;  so  loudly  indeed  did  we  laugh  that  I 
finally  cautioned  Dr.  H.  that  we  would  be  wakening  the  whole 
block.  The  next  morning  the  writer,  without  my  saying  any- 
thing about  it,  explained  that  he  did  not  mean  to  say  there  were 
monkeys  in  the  sun;  the  light  of  the  medium  was  failing  him 
and  gave  rise  to  this  error.  He  meant  to  say  that  we  would 
follow  the  light  of  the  sun  as  far  as  the  tropic  of  Capricorn 
and  there  we  would  see  the  monkeys  flying  in  and  out  of  sand 
caves.  I  do  not  see  that  this  explanation  betters  the  matter 
very  much.  A  little  later  on,  as  the  writer  was  professing  to 
show  me  the  moon,  the  hand  suddenly  stopped: — 

" '  Excuse  me  sir,  a  moment.  Who  was  the  gentleman  with 
whom  I  saw  you  seemingly  laughing  over  my  journeys  with 


564   Farther  Extracts  from  Newbold's  Notes  [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

you !  Actually  laughing . . .  yes  sir ...  and  roaring  enough  to 
split  the  canopy  of  space.  [I  confess  I  was  much  taken  aback 
by  having  my  sins  thus  unexpectedly  brought  to  light;  I  ex- 
plained who  it  was  and  how  absurd  the  statement  about  the  sun 
had  seemed  to  us.  I  begged  the  writer's  pardon.]  Not  at  all, 
sir,  thank  you  sir ...  exceedingly  kind  sir.  No  intelligent  spirit 
would  convey  for  a  moment  this  impression.  Well  now  we 
have  had  a  nice  long  trip,  and  we  wish  now  to  visit ...  no  [hand 
strikes  put  '  visit ']  leave  the  actual  planets  and  visit  our  own 
planet,  i.e.  Heaven.  Well,  sir,  come  with  me  and  I  will  take  you 
through  it  with  me.' " 

The  sun  and  heaven  "planets"!  Evidently  Mrs.  Piper 
had  as  bad  an  attack  of  the  word,  as  she  had  of  "  evolute." 

My  eliminations  indicated  in  the  foregoing  extracts  from 
Sir  Walter  are  of  pure  surplusage;  yet  you.  will  agree  that 
enough  in  all  conscience  is  left. 

June  27,  1895.  Sitter:  W.  R.  Newlold. 

"  Phinuit  speaks :  '  There  are  a  lot  of  great, — what  do  you 
call  them, — famous,  eminent  men  here  but  they  are  too  far 
advanced  in  their  sphere  to  come  back  through  any  light.  Don't 
you  believe  these  mediums  when  they  say  great  men  come  to 
them.  Don't  you  absorb  any  such  mysteries.  (But  Dr.  some 
great  men  have  professed  to  speak  through  this  light?)  [Phi- 
nuit seems  taken  aback]  Who  have,  Billie?  (Well  that  gentle- 
man who  was  here  last  time  [Walter  Scott.  H.H.]  He's  a  great 
man.)  Oh  that  friend  of  George's.  He's  here  now  with  George, 
waiting  for  you  to  get  through  talking  to  me.  He's  a  writer 
you  know.  (What  does  he  look  like?)  He  has  a  high  fore- 
head, and  hair  drooped  down  over  his  ears,  aquiline  nose  [I 
have  examined  three  portraits  of  Scott  with  reference  to  this. 
In  two  the  nose  is  unmistakably  straight;  in  one  it  is  possibly 
aquiline.  H.H.],  broad  forehead,  a  little  bit  of  hair  on  the  sides 
of  his  face  here  [feels  my  cheek,  stops,  pulls  at  my  beard] — 
you  look  as  though  you  were  covered  with  hair  Billie — rest  of 
his  face  is  shaven.  (What  is  his  name?)  I  don't  know.  We 
call  people  here  mostly  by  their  Christian  names,  we  don't  use 
the  other  names  much.  (What  is  his  Christian  name  ?)  Walter. 
. . .  Who  was  the  other  great  man  Billie  that  came  through  this 
light?  (Darwin.)  Darwin,  who's  he?  (A  great  man  Dr. — 
too  long  a  story  to  tell.)  . . .  I've  been  hanging  around  this  light 
ever  since  it  was  a  little  one : . . .  I've  been  with  this  body  ever 
since  it  came  into  the  material;  I've  been  following,  following, 
following  it  all  these  years.  (Had  you  been  long  in  the  spirit 
when  you  first  saw  it  Dr.)  No  I'd  just  awaked  in  the  spirit, — 
just  been  called  [N.B.  This  is  Mrs.  P.'s  36th  birthday.]  Do 


Ch.  XXXVI]    Phinuit  does  not  Know  Washington          565 

you  know  Billie,  I've  taken  this  body  when  very  ill  and  treated 
it.  (I  wish  you'd  do  as  much  for  me  Dr.)  I  can't  belong  to 

everybody  Billie There  are  lots  of  people  George  talks  about, 

he  reaches  them  in  thought  but  not  in  contact  A  French  gentle- 
man asked  me  about  George  Washington,  and  whether  I'd  ever 
.  seen  him.  Do  you  know  who  he  is,  Billie?  (Oh  yes.)  He  said 
he  was  a  governor  or  somebody.  Is  that  true?  (Yes  he  was  a 
great  man  with  us.)  Well  I  never  saw  him. Some  [i.e.  pro- 
fessional mediums]  are  not  altogether  frauds,  they  have  good 
lights,  but  have  too  much  imagination.  Do  you  know  what  I 
mean  Billie?  (Oh  yes.)  Well,  here  comes  George,  but  before 
I  go  I  must  give  a  message  to  these  little  girls'  mother  [Mrs. 
Thaw.  H.H.]  There  are  two  little  girls  here  with  their  grand- 
mother— Ruth  and  Margaret  and  they  wish  to  be  remembered. 
The  little  one  says  "  Pretty  pussy." ' 

The  foregoing  contains  nothing  "  evidential,"  but  I  hope  to 
learn  how  capable  seekers  of  the  evidential  account  for  it.  If 
it  is  an  attempt  of  the  alleged  "  cunning  "  "  subliminal  self  " 
of  Mrs.  Piper  or  somebody  else,  or  of  somebody's  supraliminal 
self,  to  make  an  amusingly  ingenuous  Phinuit,  it  is  over- 
drawn :  for  an  educated  French  physician  living  early  in  the 
nineteenth  century  could  not  have  had  all  this  professed 
ignorance  of  Washington.  The  same  objections  hold  against 
its  being  a  genuine  Phinuit,  unless  you  apply  the  usual  handy 
gloze  of  "  dimmed  and  confused  recollections."  It  seems 
simply  an  unaccountable  dream  jumble.  "  There  are  others." 

July  3,  1895.  Present:  E.  H. 

"  [Sir  Walter  Scott  writes.]  '  I  am  with  you,  sir.  Have  you 
followed  me  all  the  way  through  our  heavenly  world?  Do  you 
grasp  all  I  desire?  (I  try  to  realize  as  far  as  it  is  possible  for 
mortal.)  I  am  extremely  anxious  that  you  should  disentangle 
every  muddle  should  there  be  any,  by  questioning  me.  (Can 
you  tell  me  about  the  planets  beyond  Saturn  ?)  Oh  yes,  sir,  all 
of  them.  You  know  they  were  distinguished  one  from  another 
by  names  . . .  [illegible]  ...  in  Latin,  such  [  ?]  as  Latin  . . .  yes, 
which ...  I  had  no  doubt  you  would  understand  me — printed  or 
otherwise  known  as  (Latin  names  given  to  the  planets?)  Yes, 
sir. 

"'The  spirit  is  happy  and  eminent [?]  on  high 

into  all  planets  can  instantly  fly. 

You  have  not  got  the  meter  right,  sir  (Oh,  it's  in  meter.)  Yes, 
sir.  (You  are  quoting  some  poetry?)  Yes,  sir.  (Try  again.) 
Realms 

world? 


566   Farther  Extracts  from  Newlold's  Notes  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

with  [?]  its  several  [?]  wings  to  various  planets  can  instantly 
fly . . .  yes,  I ...  [illegible]  it.  The  trouble  is  you  do  not  catch 
all  of  my  words,  sir. 

The  spirit  is  happy   and  in... 

ne,  dwells  in  heaven  on  high 
No,  not  right,  sir. 

Our  spirit  is  happy  in  heaven  on  high 
With  wings  ethereal . . . 
. . .  sir,  you  have  it  our. 
(Our  spirits  are  happy  in  heaven  on  high 
With  wings"  is  that  it?) 

to  the  various  planets  we  fly. 

Similar . . .  yss,  sounds  so,  sir.  (Have  you  just  composed  these 
lines?)  I  brought  them  here  in  thought,  sir.  (You  wrote  a 
great  many  lines  of  poetry  when  you  were  in  the  body.)  Oh 
yes,  sir,  yes,  some  very  fair,  and  others  very  bad,  I  am  sure.' " 

Sir  Walter  goes  on  to  write  about  the  planets  beyond  Saturn, 
to  the  effect  that  Uranus  has  no  inhabitants  but  fish,  though 
Neptune,  much  less  likely  to  be  inhabited,  holds  a  preternatu- 
rally  intelligent  and  moral  community  of  man-like  dwarfs, 
who  believe  in  the  Trinity.  They  also  "  evolute."  When  they 
die,  they  go  to  a  part  of  Sir  Walter's  "  planet "  heaven,  "  not 
far  from  us."  He  doesn't  know  whether  the  inhabitants  of 
all  the  planets  go  there  or  not.  If  I  remember  rightly,  he 
leaves  only  a  third  planet  with  human-like  inhabitants  to 
question  about;  but  all  inferior  conscious  beings  he  very  lib- 
erally (and  not  unreasonably,  me  judice)  declares  immortal. 
He  speaks  of  "  Heaven  "  several  times  as  a  planet  (instead  of, 
like  Boston,  a  condition)  and  constantly  uses  the  primitive 
notion  of  going  "  up  "  to  it. 

Then  he  goes  into  descriptions  of  what  is  seen  and  heard 
there,  vastly  inferior  to  those  we  shall  see  later  attributed  to 
George  Eliot,  and  of  relations  to  friends  there  and  on  earth. 
But  despite  lots  of  drivel,  it  seems  to  possess  a  certain  worth- 
whileness  in  sharing  the  experience  that  to  wish  for  anything 
is  to  realize  it,  which  is  the  most  "  heavenly  "  notion  I  have 
yet  encountered,  and  which  is  (I'm  a  little  surprised  to  find 
myself  saying)  so  well  illustrated  in  the  George  Eliot  com- 
munications. All  the  wishes  given  by  "  Sir  Walter  "  are,  it 
should  be  superfluous  to  say,  innocent  ones;  and  in  response 
to  an  inquiry  whether  he  reads  or  studies,  he  implies  that  do- 
ing so  would  be  superfluous,  as  he  experiences  anything  in 


Ch.  XXXVI]    "Phillips "(Pseudonym)  the  Astronomer    567 

which  he  feels  an  interest.  That  strikes  me  as  rather  heavenly 
too. 

With  these  Scott  sittings,  as  with  the  Eliot  ones,  I  have  had 
more  noticeably  than  with  others,  one  experience  which  per- 
haps I  ought  to  own  up  to.  At  the  first  reading,  as  already 
stated,  neither  set  seemed  worth  attention ;  but  at  each  of  the 
half  dozen  subsequent  readings,  not  only  has  the  Eliot  set 
presented  more  and  more  points  that  seemed  worth  noticing, 
but  even  the  Scott  set  has  not  seemed  so  utterly  negligible  as 
at  first.  The  old-fashioned  courtesy  and  diffuseness  certainly 
suggest  some  Scott  influence.  This  may  all  be  because  I  want 
to  find  something  in  the  utterances,  and  because  therefore,  do 
my  best,  I  cannot  divest  myself  of  bias,  and  so  must  warn  you 
against  me.  Yet  my  increased  idea  that  there  may  be  some- 
thing in  them  may  be  due  to  better  reasons. 

Here  is  a  suggestive  episode,  or  "  put-up  job,"  as  you  please 
to  look  at  it.  Or  you  needn't  look  at  it  at  all  as  explaining 
anything.  I  don't. 

On  July  8,  1895,  Sir  Walter  Scott  is  alleged  to  be  talking 
to  Hodgson  some  impossible  lingo  about  Neptune  and  its  in- 
habitants, when 

Present:  B.  H. 

"  [Hand  points  beyond.  '  Who  is  this  gentleman,  sir  (H. :  Is 
it  Mr.  Phillips  [pseudonym]  ?)  No  sir ...  Dr.  A.  T.  M .  ex- 
cuse [I  introduce  Sir  Walter  Scott  and  Dr.  A.  T.  M to 

each  other!]  pleased  to  meet  you  sir.  He  wishes  me  to  say 
that  there's  nothing  serious  in  regard  to  the  child's  illness. 
Give  this  to  F  [pause]  (to  Fred?)  F.  H.  M.  sounds  sir  very 
like  F  H  M  (I  understand.)  thanks  sir.  I  am  very  grateful 
. . .  good  day, — never  mind,  I  am  pleased  to  do  anything  for 
you.' " 

Scott  when  asked  if  they  live  in  houses  says,  "  Not  at  all." 
George  Eliot  says  they  do,  and  describes  many.  Other  con- 
trols have  done  the  same. 

Sir  Walter's  fantastic  stories  of  the  planets  make  the  sitter 
want  to  know  what  Phillips  (pseudonym)  the  astronomer 
would  say.  He  asks  G.  P.  and  Phinuit  if  they  can  get  him, 
and  on  July  3,  1895,  he  turns  up — rather  absurdly  it  appears 
to  me. 

Present:  R.  H. 

"  [As   Mrs.   Piper  began   to   lose   consciousness,   her   head 


568   Farther  Extracts  from  Newbold's  Notes  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

peered  forward  as  it  were,  her  eyes  seemed  fixed,  and  she  mur- 
mured 'Phillips — Phillips — I  see  Phillips — listen,  listen 

In  the  front  of  your  eye  forms  a  lens  which  collects  the  rays  of 
light  which  project  from  an  object  and  it  registers  itself  upon 
the  retina.  That's  how  you  see  me.'  There  may  have  been 
some  additional  words.  Mrs.  Piper  then  went  into  trance  under 
what  was  obviously  a  '  new  control '  i.e.  other  than  Phinuit. 
The  attempts  to  speak  failed;  then  the  hands  and  arms  made 
movements  as  if  holding  a  telescope,  looking  through  it,  direct- 
ing it  upwards,  turning  it  in  a  sweep,  drawing  it  out,  adjusting 
it,  turning  round  the  eye  piece,  working  a  side  screw,  etc.  I 
suggest  writing.  Hand  feels  my  head  and  fingers.]  [Phillips 
writes.]  [Scrawls.]  Phillips  [scrawls.]  [Phinuit  takes  con- 
trol. Hand  becomes  more  perturbed.  Ph.  says,]  '  there's  a  gen- 
tleman there.  I  saw  him  talking  to  the  light  of  the  medium.' 
[I  give  Phinuit  a  hat  lining  of  deceased  person  to  find  details 
about  while  I  am  talking  to  Phillips.]  '  What's  the . . .  help. 
[I  hold  the  hand  by  the  wrist  gently  but  firmly  and  keep  it 
near  the  table.]  Oh  thank  you  sir,  Oh  thanks.  I  used  to 
study  and  teach  astronomy.  (Are  you  Mr.  Phillips?)  Yes,  sir, 
Phillips.  (I  heard  you  lecture  once  in  England.)  [Much  ex- 
citement in  hand.  Wild  scrawls.]  England — well — I  know 

England   very  well England.     Oh   England  how   sweet  to 

hear  the  sound  of  England  and  be  able  to  discriminate  the 
difference  between  the  immortal  and  the  mortal.  I  wished  to 
have  had  someone  to  see  me  (here?)  . . .  (Do  you  wish  to  free 
your  mind  of  anything,  or  will  you  answer  some  questions?) 
Well,  sir,  I  first  shall  have  to  become  accustomed  to  the  working 
of  this  magnet  before  I  can  express  my  thoughts  scientifically 
(You  think  perhaps  you'd  better  not  try  to  answer  technical 
questions  at  present.)  [Perturbation]  I  feel  like  a  person  in 
mortal  body  having  an  attack  of  nightmare,  sir.  I  am  all  in  a 
whirl  (Perhaps  you'd  better  not  stay  too  long.)  No,  sir.  I 
wish  to  have  you  [illegible]  understand . . .  recognize  me  as 
being  what  I ...  [illegible]  am,  a  scientific  man. . . .  My  thoughts 
are  somewhat  clouded,  consequently  I  am  not  in  the  best  pos- 
sible condition  to [illegible]  to  you  much  valuable  informa- 
tion . . .  Consequently  I  prefer  to  wait  until  I  can  express  myself 
naturally,  sir.  I'll  bid  you  good  day,  sir.  (I  hope  you'll  come 
again,  Mr.  Phillips.)  Most  assuredly  I  will,  sir,  thanks.' " 

Alleged  George  Eliot  Communications 

"  George  Eliot "  comes  in  abruptly  to  Hodgson,  on  Feb- 
ruary 26,  1897.  It  is  Professor  Newbold's  impression  that 
she(  ?)  first  put  in  an  appearance  some  time  before,  at  an  un- 
published sitting  of  an  old  friend.  Spiritists  would  account 
for  it  by  her  surviving  personality  naturally  seeking  him  both 


Ch.  XXXVI]    Speculations  Regarding  Controls  569 

as  an  old  friend  and  as  a  prominent  psychical  researcher  and 
spiritist.  Podmore  would  probably  have  accounted  for  it  by 
the  friend's  having  voluntarily  or  involuntarily  telepathed  his 
interest  in  George  Eliot,  and  virtually  everything  that  was 
said,  to  Mrs.  Piper — to  her  "  subliminal  self  "  or  unconscious 
self  or  something  else  that  was  hers.  My  guess  would  agree, 
with  qualifications,  with  both  views,  expressed  somewhat  thus : 
Mrs.  Piper  being  very  sensitive,  the  sitter,  probably  without 
conscious  intention,  hypnotized  her  with  his  interest  in  George 
Eliot,  and  very  possibly  this  invited  and  facilitated  influences, 
perhaps  unconscious,  from  George  Eliot's  surviving  psyche 
(one  is  sometimes  afraid  to  say  "soul"  these  days).  That 
influence  did  not  "get  in  strong,"  the  expressions  are  very 
little  like  George  Eliot,  but  without  the  influence  that  (today 
at  least)  I  incline  to  think  did  come  from  her,  the  manifesta- 
tion might  have  been  even  less  like  her. 

However  these  alleged  personalities  may  have  been  intro- 
duced to  the  medium,  there  may  be  much  significance  in  their 
tendency,  after  being  introduced,  to  return  again,  even  when 
the  sitter  is  changed,  and  to  various  sitters.  If  George  Eliot 
was  nothing  more  than  a  construction  by  a  friend,  through 
Mrs.  Piper,  why  should  she  return  to  Hodgson  who  was  no 
friend  at  all  ?  Why  should  he  summon  up  in  Mrs.  Piper  even 
a  recollection  of  the  friend's  George  Eliot?  Hodgson  had 
enough  else  to  do  regarding  friends  of  his  own.  Similarly, 
if  the  Imperator  group  is  only  the  production  of  Moses,  and 
the  postcarnate  Moses  himself  (?)  a  production  of  Newbold, 
why  should  they  come  to  sundry  other  sitters?  After  G.  P. 
is  introduced  with  his  friend  "  Hall,"  he  comes  to  pretty 
much  everybody.  None  of  them  restrict  themselves  to  their 
earthly  friends.  Later  the  controls  purporting  to  be  Hodgson 
and  others  connected  with  the  Society  present  themselves 
to  many  sitters,  but,  so  far  as  I  can  recall,  unlike  Phinuit 
and  G.  P.,  to  none  but  those  interested  in  the  S.  P.  R.  or  to 
personal  friends.  Several  of  the  controls  have  had  no  earthly 
association  with  some  of  their  sitters,  or  memories  in  common 
with  them.  This  does  not  look  like  telepathy  from  the  sitter; 
and  still  less  does  the  fact,  which  seems  general,  that  the 
controls  who  appear  to  strangers  are  mainly  or  only  those 
professing  interest  in  promulgating  knowledge  of  a  future 


570   Farther  Extracts  from  Newb old's  Notes  [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV. 

state.  Children  never  so  appear,  neither,  so  far  as  I  recollect, 
do  any  women  but  George  Eliot  and  Kate  Field,  who  are  also, 
so  far  as  I  can  recollect,  the  only  women-controls  professing 
an  interest  in  propagating  the  faith.  All  this  is  worth  think- 
ing over.  Very  consonantly  with  this,  "  George  Eliot "  says 
(February  26,  1897),  in  response  to  a  remark  of  Hodgson's 
on  her  dislike  of  and  disbelief  in  spiritism : 

" ' You  may  have  noted  the  anxiety  of  such  as  I  to 

return  and  enlighten  your  fellow  men.  It  is  more  especially 
confined  to  unbelievers  before  their  departure  to  this  life.' " 

This  remark  and  G.  P.'s  persistent  efforts  seem  to  my  un- 
tutored mind  strongly  "  evidential." 

George  Eliot  is  made  to  say,  at  various  times : 

"I  was  sent  again  because  I  was  desirous  of  so  doing;... 
Friend,  it  is  impossible  to  convey  to  you  the  exact  idea  to  your 

mind ;  in  fact  it  is  indescribable 1  am  not  sufficiently  strong 

enough  to  remain  longer  with  you ; " 

And  even  the  impeccable  Imperator  propounds: 
"  May  he ...  abide  with  thee  [sic]  one  and  all." 

Now  these  apparently  straightaway  and  deliberate  violations 
of  grammar,  of  which  these  are  not  the  only  specimens  I  give, 
on  the  part  of  such  personages,  may  be  due  to  defective  re- 
porting, or  even  defective  communicating;  but  at  least  they 
"  must  give  us  pause." 

But  to  return  to  "  George  Eliot." 

March  5,  1897.  Hodgson  sitting. 

"  [G.  E.  writes :]  '  Do  you  remember  me  well  ? . . .  I  had  a  sad 
life  in  many  ways,  yet  in  others  I  was  happy,  yet  I  have  never 

known  what  real  happiness  was  until  I  came  here 1  was  an 

unbeliever,  in  fact  almost  an  agnostic  when  I  left  my  body,  but 
when  I  awoke  and  found  myself  alive  in  another  form  superior 
in  quality,  that  is,  my  body  less  gross  and  heavy,  with  no  pangs 
of  remorse,  no  struggling  to  hold  on  to  the  material  body,  I 

found  it  had  all  been  a  dream '  R.  H. :  '  That  was  your  first 

experience  ? '  G.  E. :  '. . .  The  moment  I  had  been  removed  from 
my  body  I  found  at  once  I  had  been  thoroughly  mistaken  in 
my  conjectures.  I  looked  back  upon  my  whole  life  in  one  in- 
stant. Every  thought,  word,  or  action  which  I  had  ever  ex- 
perienced passed  through  my  mind  like  a  wonderful  panorama 
as  it  were  before  my  vision.  You  cannot  begin  to  imagine 
anything  so  real  and  extraordinary  as  this  first  awakening. . . . 


Ch.  XXXVI]    George  Eliot.    Changes  of  Controls         571 

You  must  not  think,  my  friend,  from  anything  you  may  have 
heard  or  known  of  my  life  that  I  was  not  a  thinker.  Should  you 
think  this,  you  would  be  mistaking  me  altogether.'  R.  H. :  'I 
have  always  had  the  most  profound  admiration,  not  merely  for 
your  psychological  work  in  fiction,  but  for  your  clear  philo- 
sophical insight  and  originality.'  G.  E. :  '  Thanks  to  you  my 
friend. ...  A  few  days  I  had  a  feeling  of  remorse,  but  it  did  not 
last  long.  When  this  passed  away  I  began  to  feel  happier  than 
I  had  ever  been  through  the  whole  course  of  my  earthly  exist- 
ence. ...  I  immediately  sang  songs  of  love,  realizing  that  I  was 
a  part  of  love  itself.  I  cannot  tarry  much  longer  with  you,  my 
friend,  but  if  you  would  have  me  say  more  of  my  life  here, 

call  for  me  in  spirit,  that  is,  in  thought My  life  while  in  my 

body  is  filled  with  love  to ...  No  woman  on  your  planet  to-day 
ever  expressed  more.  Love  is  spirit;  love  is  everything;  where 

love  is  not,  there  nothing  is 1  may  not  be  visible,  that  is  in 

body,  but  I  am  determined  to  blow  the  bugle  so  long  as  I  can 
reach  a  friend.  George  Eliot  is  not  one  to  be  embarrassed  by 
the  loss  of  a  word.  She  would  cling  to  her  friends  for  ever  and 
anon.  Many  are  the  walks  [talks  ?  ?]  she  had  in  life,  and  many 
are  those  she  is  taking  now,  and  one  she  must  take  is  at  this 
present  moment ' " 

Here  is  a  queer  muddle  which  under  one  perfectly  natural 
interpretation  seems  proof  positive  of  spiritism.  On  the  same 
day  with  the  foregoing,  Mrs.  Piper  in  trance  said :  "  I  shall 
never  be  able  to  remember  that,"  and  then  recited,  as  if 
attempting  to  recall,  what  seemed  to  be  a  couple  of  lines  of 
verse,  though  Hodgson  did  not  catch  them  clearly.  Then 
"  George  Eliot "  says  to  Hodgson :  "  I  was  speaking  to  a  lady 
whom  I  saw  passing  over  the  boundary  line;  I  was  reciting 
poetry  to  her."  Now  Phinuit,  in  sundry  places,  insists  that 
when  he  "takes  possession,"  Mrs.  Piper  does  go  out,  and 
"  passes  over  the  boundary."  The  converse  would,  if  true  at 
all,  naturally  be  true  of  George  Eliot,  and  the  foregoing  would 
seem  to  indicate  an  exchange  of  ideas  between  the  two  in- 
telligences as  they  were  passing  each  other.  There  are  several 
accounts  given  of  the  experiences  of  Mrs.  Piper's  soul  while 
in  its  alleged  frequent  temporary  excarnate  states,  and  of  hers 
and  Phinuit's  changing  places  in  her  body.  These  rather 
material  expressions  may  be  statements  in  the  only  language 
we  yet  have,  for  spiritual  happenings.  Certainly  that  appar- 
ent allusion  to  an  interchange  of  ideas  en  passant  between 
"  George  Eliot "  and  Mrs.  Piper  is  too  incidental  to  be  a  piece 


572   Farther  Extracts  from  Newlold's  Notes  [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV. 

of  deliberate  deceit,  and  is  so  natural  as  to  seem  evidential. 
And  of  course  the  next  thing  we  happen  upon  will  point  just 
as  clearly  in  the  other  direction ! 

March  6,  1897. 

" '  Is  it  not  high  time  that  the  old  dogmas  were  being  rooted 
out,  and  this  fear  of  passing  out  from  the  crude  material  dis- 
posed of  altogether.  The  passing  out  of  the  spirit  is  like  drop- 
ping off  into  a  profound  slumber  for  a  while,  then  waking  to  a 
life  that  is  real  and  not  a  dream  or  horrible  nightmare.  The 
life  on  earth  at  its  best  is  nothing  more 1,  at  first,  was  fear- 
ful of  leaving  my  body,  as  I  oft  times  repeated  to  myself  when 
alone,  for  where,  oh  where,  am  I  going  I  know  not. . . .  When 
the  final  thought  passed  through  my  throbbing  brain  something 
within  me  seemed  to  say  "  all  is  well."  That  was  the  last 
earthly  thought  I  ever  had.  When  my  eyes  were  blinded  and 
my  ears  ceased  to  hear,  I  felt  a  shadow  of  darkness  passing  over 
my  whole  frame.  I  was  no  longer  conscious,  but  I  was  passing 
out,  and  yet  I  knew  it  not.  This  lasted  for  a  few  moments, 
and  I  awoke  in  a  realm  of  golden  light.  I  heard  the  voices  of 
friends  who  had  gone  before  calling  to  me  to  follow  them.  At 
the  moment  the  thrill  of  joy  was  so  intense  I  was  like  one  stand- 
ing spellbound  before  a  beautiful  panorama.  The  music  which 
filled  my  soul  was  like  a  tremendous  symphony.  I  had  never 
heard  nor  dreamed  of  anything  half  so  beautiful. . . .  The  voices 
of  my  friends  sounded  like  the  soft  and  mellow  strains  of  a 
silver  lute 

" '  Another  thing  which  seemed  to  me  beautiful  was  the  tran- 
quillity of  everyone.  You  will  perhaps  remember  that  I  had  left 
a  state  where  no  one  ever  knew  what  tranquillity  meant.  Now 
my  friend,  for  my  own  satisfaction,  kindly  state  to  me  whether 
or  not  you  can  realize  anything  of  this  ? ...  It  is  a  satisfaction 
to  us  to  know  and  feel  from  our  crude  descriptions  you  are  in 

the  least  able  to  conceive  anything  of  what  it  is  like We  are 

trying  to  enlighten  our  friends  as  much  as  possible  and  comfort 
them.'" 

On  March  13, 1897 : 

" '  I  was  speaking  about  the  songs  of  our  birds.  Then  the 
birds  seemed  to  pass  beyond  my  vision,  and  I  longed  for  music 
of  other  kinds. . . .  This  thought,  however,  was  only  a  fleeting 
one,  when,  to  my  surprise,  my  desires  were  filled Just  be- 
fore me  sat  the  most  beautiful  bevy  of  young  girls  that  eyes 
ever  rested  upon.  Some  playing  stringed  instruments,  others 
that  sounded  and  looked  like  silver  bugles,  but  they  were  all  in 
harmony,  and  I  must  truly  confess  that  I  never  heard  such 
strains  of  music  before.  No  mortal  mind  can  possibly  realize 
anything  like  it.  It  was  not  only  in  this  one  thing  that  my 


Ch.  XXXVI]          To  Desire  is  to  Have  573 

desires  were  filled,  but  in  all  things  accordingly.  I  had  not 
one  desire,  but  that  it  was  filled  without  any  apparent  act  of 
myself.  Every  thought  was  complete;  my  mind  was  clear;  my 
thoughts  free.  As  you  must  know,  this  bevy  of  young  girls 
remained  before  my  vision  until  my  soul  had  its  desire  filled. 
Then  the  panorama  changed,  and  I  actually  saw  their  bodies 
take  wings,  [Hand  indicates  motion  as  of  rising  away]  passing 
through  the  beautiful  clear  ethereal  till  they  were  lost  to  my 
vision.' 

"  (Do  you  mean  that  they  moved  swiftly,  or  that  they  seemed 
to  be  wearing  wings?) 

" '  They  moved  swiftly,  the  actual  wings  were  not.  Not  only 
in  this,  my  friend,  were  my  desires  filled ...  I  saw  everything  I 
wished.  I  only  had  to  think  about  it  and  it  would  immediately 
present  itself 

"  '  I  longed  to  see  gardens  and  trees,  flowers,  etc.  I  no  sooner 
had  the  desire  than  they  appeared.  I  was  standing  in  a  flash  in 
the  center  of  one  of  the  most  beautiful  gardens  I  ever  beheld 
since  the  first  thought  of  George  Eliot.  Such  beautiful  flowers 
no  human  eye  ever  gazed  upon.  It  was  simply  indescribable, 
yet  everything  was  real.  There  was  no  mistaking  it,  none 
whatever.  I  walked  and  moved  along  as  easily  as  a  fly  would 
pass  through  a  ray  of  sunlight  in  your  world.  I  had  no  weight, 
nothing  cumbersome,  nothing.  My  body  was  light  and  free  to 
move  at  my  own  will.  I  passed  along  through  this  garden, 
meeting  millions  of  friends.  As  they  were  all  friendly  to  me, 

each  and  every  one  seemed  to  be  my  friend 1  then  thought 

of  different  friends  I  had  once  known,  and  my  desire  was  to 
meet  some  one  of  them,  when  like  every  other  thought  or  desire 
that  I  had  expressed,  the  friend  of  whom  I  thought  instantly 
appeared.' " 

Apparently  a  "  spirit,"  like  a  thought,  can  be  in  any  number 
of  places  at  once.  Why  not — through  telopsis,  telakousis,  etc.  ? 

How  much  all  this  is  like  dreams !  My  motive  in  harping 
on  this  so  often  will  appear  in  Chapters  L  and  LIV.  Mean- 
while, please,  yourself  be  on  the  lookout  for  similar  in- 
dications. 

"  March  27,  1897.  (A  good  deal  of  confusion,  out  of  which 
appears)  '  He  [Rector.  H.H.]  will  insist  upon  calling  me  Miss, 
but  let  him  if  he  wishes.  I  am  very  much  Mrs.  Never  mind 
so  long  as  it  suits  him. ...  I  have  met  my  mother,  one  friend 
whom  I  prefer  not  to  mention 

" '  I  have  a  desire  for  reading,  when  instantly  my  whole  sur- 
rounding is  literally  filled  with  books  of  all  kinds  and  by  many 

different  authors When  I  touched  a  book  and  desired  to 

meet  its  author,  if  he  or  she  were  in  our  world,  he  or  she  would 


574  Farther  Extracts  from  Newbold's  Notes  [Bk.  II,  Ft  IV 

instantly  appear,  [Is  this  purely  incidental  reiterated  claim 
for  female  authors,  by  one  of  them,  "  evidential,"  or  was  Mrs. 
Piper  ingenious  enough  to  invent  it?  H.H.]  . . .  Then  I  wish  to 
leave  them  all  and  pass  on  onto  new  surroundings.  This  I 
desire  to  do  not  alone,  but  accompanied  by  one  of  the  persona 
who  had  so  interestingly  and  mysteriously  presented  themselves. 
. . .  We  simply  passed  out  from  the  present  debris  of  books, 
papers,  etc.,  to ...  (Confusion)  I  will  be  obliged  to  leave  this 
until  there  is  more  light,  friend.' " 

March  2,  1897. 

" '  Through  some  we  may  be  able  to  speak  directly,  while 
through  others  we  must  send  messages  to  our  friends  through  a 
controlling  spirit,  and  in  this  case  it  is  never  as  clear.  Neither 
can  we  see  our  friends  as  clearly.  (Says  of  G.  P.)  He  is  going 
on  with  a  higher  life.  We  are  sent  here  to  fill  his  place  and  try 
and  clear  ourselves  as  he  has  done.'" 

The  change  of  the  instrument  below  is  a  specially  dream-like 
touch. 

March  30,  1897. 

" '  I  wished  to  see  and  realize  that  some  of  the  mortal  world's 
great  musicians  really  existed,  and  asked  to  be  visited  by  some 
one  or  more  of  them.  When  this  was  expressed,  instantly  sev- 
eral appeared  before  me  and  Eubenstein  stood  before  me  playing 
upon  an  instrument  like  a  harp  at  first.  Then  the  instrument 
was  changed  and  a  piano  appeared  and  he  played  upon  it  with 
the  most  delightful  ease  and  grace  of  manner.  While  he  was 
playing  the  whole  atmosphere  was  filled  with  his  strains  of 
music.' " 

On  the  same  day  "  George  Eliot "  tells  of  meeting  in 
prompt  response  to  her  wishes,  great  poets  and  musicians  of 
the  past,  and  hearing  the  latter  play.  But  as  she  compares  a 
woman's  beautiful  voice  to  a  silver  lute,  which  George  Eliot 
was  too  good  a  musician  to  do,  perhaps  an  initial  f  was  omitted 
from  the  lute. 

But  probably  it  was  not,  because  she  keeps  on  comparing 
things  with  "  a  silver  lute,"  which  is  a  great  deal  more  like 
Mrs.  Piper  than  like  George  Eliot. 

March  31,  1897. 

" G.  E. :  'I  expressed  a  wish  to  see  Rembrandt  or  any  other 
artist  of  repute  known  to  me  when  in  the  body . . .  when,  without 

any  further  effort  on  my  part  beyond  expressing  the  wish,  R 

presented  himself  to  me,  and  not  only  himself,  but  the  most 
exquisite  works  of  art.  Beautiful  landscapes,  heads  of  many 
spirits  well  known  to  me  as  a  mortal.  They  appeared  before  my 


Ch.  XXXVI]       Paradoxical  Musical  Ideas  575 

vision  like  a   beautiful  panorama,   ever   changing,   and  each 
picture  more  beautiful  than  the  previous  one.' " 
April  2,  1897. 

"  (George  Eliot.)  '  Very  well  now,  after  having  had  those 
wonderful  experiences  I  thought  I  would  further  like  to  know 
whether  I  could  hear  a  full  symphony  of  musical  instruments. 
. . .  Now,  friend,  all  I  did  was  to  express  this  wish  and  my  eyes 
were  opened  as  it  were,  and  before  me  sat  some  thirty  musicians, 
in  fact,  a  whole  orchestra  and  instantly  they  began  to  play,  and 
the  whole  spiritual  universe  as  it  were  seemed  to  be  one  beauti- 
ful symphony  of  music.  They  played  for  me  the  most  beautiful 
selections  of  music  I  ever  heard  in  my  life,  and  the  various  notes 
were  r,o  distinct  and  clear  that  there  was  no  mistaking  that  I 
was  listening  to  a  symphony  in  heaven —  .  The  music  was  music, 
not  a  material  sound  of  jumbling  discords  as  those  which  are 
sometimes  played  upon  your  earthly  instruments,  but  the  most 
exquisite  melodies  produced  from  the  instruments  which  were 
held  before  my  eyes 

"April  7,  1897.  'I  listened  to  the  harmonies  of  symphony, 
my  whole  spirit  being  in  rapport  with  the  delightful  strains. 
I  listened  until  desires  were  filled.  Then  I  longed  to  be  alone 
where  I  could  think  it  over.  The  leader  first  acknowledged  my 
presence  as  a  listener,  then  each  member  of  the  orchestra.  Then 
each  one  in  his  own  turn  smiled  sweetly,  bowed,  and  each  one 
slowly  vanished  from  my  vision.  They  were  gone.  I  was  left 
as  I  desired,  alone. ...  I  have,  of  course,  wished  to  know  whether 
there  were  artists,  musicians,  trees,  birds,  flowers,  love,  friend- 
ship, hope,  sympathy  and  tenderness  as  I  had  ofttimes  experi- 
enced when  in  the  body They  exist  each  and  every  one  of 

them.    A  most  stern  reality  indeed.' " 

George  Eliot  was  a  remarkably  good  musician.  If  she 
wanted  an  orchestra,  she  would  have  wanted  at  least  sixty, 
and  probably  more  than  a  hundred.  Perhaps  they  do  these 
things  with  more  limited  resources  in  Heaven?  Such  an 
incongruity  as  this,  and  the  inane  dilution  of  the  writing, 
make  a  genuine  George  Eliot  control  hard  to  predicate,  and 
yet  this  control,  like  virtually  every  other  one,  is  an  individu- 
ality, and  is  less  unlike  George  Eliot  than  is  any  other  control 
I  know.  Will  difficulties  of  communication  or  any  other 
tertium  quid,  make  up  the  difference  ?  I  first  read  the  record 
with  repulsion,  and  now  find  in  it  some  elements  of  attraction. 

June  3,  1897. 

"  (G.  E.  writes)  '  Now  then  I  had  had  other  desires,  among 
which  was  a  desire  to  see  some  of  the  children  whom  we  had 
heard  called  angels. ...  I  expressed  the  desire  in  precisely  the 


576   Farther  Extracts  from  Neivbold's  Notes  [Bk.  II,  Ft  IV 

same  way  in  which  I  had  done  before. ...  I  had  no  sooner  ex- 
pressed the  earnest  thought  than  they  appeared  as  so  many 
others  had  done  before.  A  very  large  group  of  children  ranging 
in  years  from  one  to  twelve  I  should  say  stood  before  me  in 
rotation.  Friend  it  was  to  me  one  of  the  most  exquisitely 
beautiful  sights  that  up  to  that  moment  had  met  my  vision. 
Then  they  began  to  smile.  Such  expressions  of  sweetness  you 
cannot  imagine.  Their  little  faces  were  like  golden  beams  of 
the  most  radiant  sunlight.  Their  eyes  beaming  with  delight 
and  with  the  pleasure  they  seemed  to  realize  they  were  affording 
me.  They  each  one  and  in  fact  all  of  them  together  clapped 
their  tiny  little  hands  with  delight.  I  then  spoke  to  them  and 
asked  them  to  come  closer  to  me  and  try  and  see  if  they  could 
not  let  me  touch  them.  They  advanced  towards  me  and  one 
little  sunny  haired  child  placed  a  little  golden  harp  at  my  feet. 

Another  advanced  and  drew  a  slight (line  ?)  across  the 

strings  of  it  and  as  she  did  this  the  most  exquisitely  beautiful 
sounds  seemed  to  arise  and  the  whole  atmosphere  was  instantly 
filled  with  music.  I  glanced  about  me  and  to  my  surprise  those 
sweet  children  were  accompanying  those  two  younger  ones  by 
singing . . .  (Sitter:  Are  all  very  young  children  of  the  order  of 
little  angels  ?)  No,  I  find  they  are  not  all.  There  are  some  who 
have  not  reached  this  realm.  (S. :  Earthbound  children?)  There 
are  in  some  few  cases.  It  is  not  so  frequently  the  case  however 
with  children.  They  are  generally  accepted  here  at  once  and 
are  not  denied  because  of  their  lack  of  knowledge  of  sin  when 
in  their  environment.  It  was  the  most  indescribable  scene  I 
had  ever  witnessed.  I  am  sorry  indeed  that  such  as  yourself 
should  not  be  allowed  to  come  here  for  a  time  and  witness  just 
such  scenes  as  I  have  described  and  then  return  to  earth.  (S. : 
But  how  dissatisfied  we  should  be.)  Exactly,  but  yet  the  ex- 
perience would  be  worth  all.'  " 

Telepathy  from  the  sitter  will  hardly  account  for  the  fol- 
lowing, especially  the  strange  turn  at  the  end. 

" '  I  being  fond,  very  fond  of  writers  of  ancient  history  etc. 
felt  a  strong  desire  to  see  Dante,  Aristotle  and  several  others. 
Shakespeare  if  such  a  spirit  existed.  [An  odd  bunch  of  "  writers 
of  ancient  history  " !  H.H.]  As  I  stood  thinking  of  him  a  spirit 
instantly  appeared  who  speaking  said  "  I  am  Bacon." . . .  As 
Bacon  neared  me  he  began  to  speak  and  quoted  to  me  the  fol- 
lowing words  "  You  have  questioned  my  reality.  Question  it 
no  more  I  am  Shakespeare." ' 

June  4,  1897. 

" '  I  had  no  sympathy  with  spiritualism,  none  whatever,  and 
when  I  finally  left  the  earthly  life,  of  which  I  was  extremely 
fond,  I  felt  for  the  moment  that  I  would  like  to  hang  my  head 
in  shame,  in  repentance  for  my  incredulity. . . .  Speak  to  me  for 


Ch.  XXXVI]  Regarding  Lewes.    Imperator's  Diploma   577 

a  moment  and  if  you  have  anything  to  say  in  the  nature  of 
poetry  or  prose  would  you  kindly  recite  a  line  or  two  to  me. 
It  will  give  me  strength  to  remain  longer  than  I  could  other- 
wise do.    (R.  H.  recites  a  poem  of  Dowden's  beginning, 
" '  I  said  I  will  find  God  and  forth  I  went 

To  seek  him  in  the  clearness  of  the  sky,'  etc.  Excitement.) 
G.  E. :  '  I  will  go  and  see  G.  and  return  presently  (R.  H. :  Who 
says  that  ?)  I  do  (R.  H. :  I  do  not  understand  what  you  mean 
by  G.)  I  do  My  husband.  Do  you  not  know  I  had  a  husband? 
(R.  H. :  Do  you  mean  by  G.  Mr.  George  Henry  Lewes?)  [Hand 
is  writing  Lewes  while  I  am  saying  George  Henry]  Lewes. 
Yes  I  do.  Oh  I  am  so  happy.  And  when  I  did  not  mistake  alto- 
gether my  deeds  I  am  more  happy  than  tongue  can  utter 
(R.  H. :  I  never  dreamed  otherwise  than  that  you  were  alto- 
gether right.)  Thank  you  very  kindly  for  those  warm  expres- 
sions of  consolation.'  [As  bearing  on  her  feeling  for  Lewes  not 
many  months  after  his  death,  the  foregoing  does  not  correspond 
with  some  widely  credited  but  unpublished  allegations.  H.H.]  " 

Meanwhile,  April  1st  (auspicious  day!)  Imperator  has 
given  "  George  Eliot "  a  first-class  diploma.  Nevertheless  the 
phraseology  is  not  that  of  Mrs.  Piper  or  of  Hodgson,  who  was 
sitting. 

"  (Rector  writes)  '  I,  Imperator,  do  hereby  in  consideration 
of  many  kindnesses,  bestowed  upon  us  through  the  congeniality 
and  influence  of  our  friend  and  co-worker,  George  Eliot,  hence- 
forth and  forever  pronounce  her  worthy  and  capable  to  manage 
through  her  clearness  of  thought,  this  light,  and  I  now  place 
her  at  the  head  of  our  circle.  She  is  to  be  counted  as  the 
leader  of  the  band  of  lady  communicators.  She  will  in  any  and 
all  cases  take  and  deliver  all  messages  taken  from  either  our 
side  or  yours. . . .  We  will  never  allow  so  long  as  there  is  a  mor- 
tal covering  to  this  spirit  [i.e.  Mrs.  Piper?  H.H.]  which  we  so 
easily  remove  from  its  abiding  place,  any  other  than  the  best 
and  most  pure  spirits  to  enter.  We  are  all  a  pure  and  high- 
minded  band  of  spirits,  and  we  have  been  attracted  here  through 
the  earnest  desire  of  a  friend  of  yours,  also  by  yourself,  and 
since  we  see  clearly  your  earnestness  and  sincerity  in  giving  us 
the  right,  we  were  only  too  pleased  to  accept  your  offer  and  profit 
thereby.  Do  you  at  this  moment  know  to  whom  we  refer?' 
(H.  suggests  Pelham  and  Myers,  with  negative  results.  Then 
suggests  W.  R.  N.)  " 

We  now  reach  an  intimation  that  Professor  Newbold,  having 
made  the  acquaintance  of  the  Moses  control,  as  we  have  seen, 
had  asked  him  to  bring  back  his  friends  of  the  Imperator 
group,  and  that  they  want  him  to  take  up  the  work. 


578   Farther  Extracts  from  Newb old's  Notes  [Bk.  II,  Pt  IV 

" '  Yes,  it  is  so.  He  expressed  a  special  desire  that  we  should 
take  up  our  work  through  this  light,  clearing  up  as  much  as 
possible  all  confusion  and  disturbances 

" '  We  are  not  in  the  region  of  earth,  we  are  far  beyond  it. 
We  find  it  difficult  in  reaching  you  clearly  in  consequence  of 

our  being  so  remote We  were  wandering  about  your  abode 

several  hours  previous  to  your  visiting  here.  We  see  some 
things  which  attract  us  there,  and  not  ourselves  personally,  but 
friends  and  relatives  of  your  own . . .  (in  re  attempt  to  give 
messages  in  London). 

" '  Identical  words  are  always  difficult  to  carry.  Our  own 
work  is  carried  on  in  this  way  in  our  own  world  in  ideas,  not 
in  words,  as  we  did  of  old  when  in  mortal  body 

"  (H.  tries  to  explain  the  mechanism  of  writing.  Writer 
finds  difficulty  in  understanding.) 

" '  We  hear  of ttimes  your  voice  in  the  same  way,  indistinctly, 
at  times  the  words  sound  very  distant,  and  we  do  not  grasp 
what  you  are  saying.' " 

Imperator  &  Co. 

This  has  brought  us  unworthy,  again  into  association  with 
His  High  Mightiness  and  his  entourage — Rector,  Doctor, 
Prudens,  and,  I  believe,  some  more.  They  appeared  soon 
after  their  godfather  and  possible  father,  Stainton  Moses,  had 
appeared  to  Professor  Newbold;  and,  as  explained  by  Hodg- 
son in  his  second  report  (Chapter  XXXIV),  they  ousted 
Phinuit,  took  control  of  the  medium  and  of  Hodgson  too — 
mind,  body,  and  estate,  and  bossed  things  generally  with  much 
benefit  to  everybody's  health  and  the  communications  from 
the  other  world.  All  of  which  reminds  me  that  "  God  moves 
in  a  mysterious  way  His  wonders  to  perform  " ;  for  while  the 
gang  are  decent  enough  fellows  in  most  ways,  they  have  an 
amount  of  priggishness,  pomposity,  and  defective  grammar 
amid  the  most  hifalutin  talk,  that  all  seriously  interfere  with 
a  due  appreciation  of  their  virtues — at  least  on  the  part  of  the 
present  scribe.  The  standard  of  taste  they  show  through  Mrs. 
Piper  is  not  what  they  showed  through  Stainton  Moses,  as 
manifested  in  Spirit  Teachings  or  in  the  Myers  papers  in  the 
Pr.  S.  P.  R.  All  this  powerfully  supports  the  theory  that 
all  these  manifestations  are  a  blending  of  medium,  sitter,  and 
apparently  other  rills  from  the  cosmic  ocean,  which  can  be 
traced  only  in  proportion  to  the  indications  left  by  them  while 
incarnate,  in  the  memories  of  survivors.  The  Imperator  gang 


Ch.  XXXVI]    Imperator  &  Co.  "Redivivi"  579 

have  left  no  such  traces,  and  their  presentation  through  Moses 
seems  to  me  to  be  plainly  all  Moses.  They  were  the  sort  of 
people  an  Anglican  clergyman  would  be  apt  to  create,  and 
Moses  had  a  peculiar  facility  in  creating  archaic  names — 
witness  his  orchestra.  There  is  no  indication  that  any  of  them 
ever  existed  on  earth.  He  alleged,  and  probably  believed,  that 
after  they  introduced  themselves  under  their  nicknames,  they 
gave  him  a  set  of  names  of  people  who  had  existed  on  earth; 
and  for  Imperator,  hints  of  the  Old-Testament  Moses,  St. 
Paul,  and  St.  Augustine  appear;  but  as  we  know,  Moses' 
alleged  spirit  did  not  give  the  same  names  to  Professor  New- 
bold  that  he,  in  the  flesh,  did  to  Myers. 

The  Piper-Imperator  gang  seem  to  be  the  unconscious  crea- 
tion of  Mrs.  Piper  and  Hodgson,  with  perhaps  some  involun- 
tary initiative  and  assistance  from  Professor  Newbold.  Hodg- 
son seems  to  have  been  wrought  up  to  do  his  share  in  creating 
them  by  involuntary  telepathic  influence  on  Mrs.  Piper's 
dreams,  springing  from  his  spiritistic  faith  and  his  reading  of 
Moses'  writings.  Moreover,  apparently  Mrs.  Piper's  dreams 
were  colored  by  Moses'  books,  which,  Professor  Newbold  tells 
me,  Hodgson  had  given  her.  The  unsuccessful  struggles  with 
the  thee-and-thou  form  of  expression  were  more  apt  to  be  hers 
than  Hodgson's. 

But  now  we  are  apparently  approaching  more  ticklish 
ground.  What  was  the  Piper-Moses?  Professor  Newbold 
does  not  remember  whether  he  had  imagined  Moses  the  quaint 
and  mistaken  figure  that  Mrs.  Piper  dreamed  when  Professor 
Newbold  sat.  It  looks,  however,  as  if  he  was  that  figure  in 
Professor  Newbold's  imagination,  and  as  if  he  was  something 
of  the  sort  in  Mrs.  Piper's  too :  for  the  then  editions  of  Spirit 
Teachings  did  not,  I  believe,  contain  the  portrait  I  spoke  of 
in  my  last  chapter.  So  far,  then,  the  control  was  apparently 
Piper  and  sitter.  There  was  quaintness  in  the  language  too, 
which  may  have  been  part  of  the  unconscious  construction  of 
those  two.  But  it  rapidly  disappeared  at  later  sittings.  Why  ? 
My  gamble  is  that  in  the  complex  stream  there  was  an  inflow 
of  Moses  himself,  and  that  as  this  rill  became  wider  and  deeper 
— "stronger"  (in  the  terminology  that  has  naturally  grown 
up  around  the  phenomena) — the  language  become  more  that 


580   Farther  Extracts  from  Newlold's  Notes  [Bk.  II,  Ft  IV 

of  the  Moses  personality.  We  see  things  like  this  in  the  pres- 
ent life:  one  of  the  family  or  a  close  friend  conies  in,  and 
you  say :  "  You've  been  with  so-and-so " :  turns  of  thought 
and  expression  have  flowed  from  one  personality  into  the 
other.  Nay,  even  something  like  teloteropathy  shows  itself 
in  the  same  way.  Your  friend  need  not  have  been  out  at 
all,  for  you  to  say :  "  You're  talking  like  so-and-so,  or  you're 
thinking  like  so-and-so."  Yet  in  most  of  these  cases,  but  by 
no  means  in  all,  the  phenomena  are  due  to  memory. 

There  is  more,  however,  to  the  guess  I'm  expounding.  Moses 
had  been  dead  some  years  when  Professor  Newbold  and  Mrs. 
Piper  evoked  him  from  the  past,  and  for  some  time  in  their 
talks  with  G.  P.  and  Phinuit,  they  had  been  imagining  and 
desiring  and  sending  for  him:  so  when  he  did  appear  (Don't 
ask  me  for  precise  language  here:  consider  all  this  symbolic 
if  you  want  to)  what  came  was  very  largely  the  Piper-sitter 
construction.  And  now  arises  a  voracious  guess,  but  see  if  it 
doesn't  fit.  It  is  a  guess,  not  an  assertion,  that  there  was  a 
Stainton-Moses  surviving  consciousness,  and  that  it  or  he  got 
wind  of  these  proceedings,  either  through  his  own  telepathic 
perceptions,  or,  if  you  please,  through  Professor  Newbold's 
invitation  through  G.  P.  via  Phinuit,  to  come  and  see  him, 
and  that  he  very  naturally  did  so.  Now  I'd  better  leave  the 
anthropomorphic  metaphor  (it  seems  rather  tight-fitting  for 
a  postcarnate  individuality)  and  get  back  to  the  cosmic  ocean 
one.  When  the  trickle  of  Moses  consciousness  got  to  the  Moses 
stream  of  Piper-sitter  consciousness,  the  trickle  wasn't  strong 
enough  to  dilute  away  the  color  of  Piper-sitter  language: 
but  as  more  and  more  of  the  Moses  consciousness  flowed  in, 
the  Piper-sitter  stream  became  not  only  relatively  less,  but 
positively  less,  because  the  consciousnesses  from  which  it  sprang 
were  more  and  more  impressed  (the  metaphor  is  getting 
mixed,  of  course)  by  the  increasing  Moses  influence;  and 
so  the  Piper-sitter  stream  gradually  ceased  to  contribute 
to  the  alleged  Moses  stream,  as  the  actual  Moses  stream 
increased. 

Now  contrast  the  talk  of  the  alleged  postcarnate  Moses  at 
the  outset,  in  the  last  chapter,  with  this  later  talk  (which  I 
will  quote  a  few  lines  below),  after  his  stream  had  established 
a  line  of  least  resistance  in  the  medium.  (We  have  been  led, 


Ch.  XXXVI]    Controls  First  Await  Congenial  Sitters     581 

by  the  way,  to  the  exact  metaphor  with  which  Spencer  starts 
his  exposition  of  psychic  lines  of  least  resistance.) 

Now,  if  you  please,  anticipate  the  course  of  the  Piper  dream, 
and  skip  to  Chapter  XLIII  and  see  how  Hodgson,  who  was 
well  acquainted  with  hoth  medium  and  sitter,  and  so  had 
lines  of  least  resistance  in  both,  made  his  first  appearance  as 
control;  or  turn  back,  if  you  please,  to  Chapter  XXXI  and 
see  how  G.  P.,  who  had  a  special  line  of  least  resistance  in  the 
sitter,  made  his.  Bear  all  this  in  mind  when  you  come  in 
regular  course  to  Myers  and  Hodgson  redivivi. 

This  string  of  guesses  regarding  the  controls  is  probably  the 
most  mature  that  I  shall  present.  The  present  chapter  is  an 
insertion  after  the  book  was  in  type.  But  in  fact  the  guesses 
are  by  no  means  consecutive  in  the  rest  of  the  work,  as  you  will 
have  seen,  and  will  see.  As  the  book  progressed,  the  mind 
would  of  course  revert  back  now  and  then,  and  brace  up  and 
qualify  here  and  there.  This  is  true,  or  should  be  true  in  any 
book;  but  it  is  specially  true  in  a  book  whose  material  is  so 
foggy ;  and  mentioning  it  may  be  of  occasional  use  in  explana- 
tion. When  you  come  to  write  a  book  on  these  subjects,  you 
will  find — perhaps  have  already  written  and  have  found — that 
it  grows  in  the  writing,  even  in  parts  after  they  are  first 
written,  more  than  a  book  on  a  subject  that  you — or  some- 
body— knows  more  about  before  starting. 

If  I  were  to  write  the  whole  book  over  for  the  sake  of  con- 
secutiveness,  I  should  probably  but  repeat  the  same  experi- 
ences on  a  larger  scale. 

And  mind,  I  don't  call  all  those  guesses,  beliefs. 

On  March  24,  1897,  Moses  wrote: 

" '  I  have  passed  through  so  many  stages  since  I  came  to  this 
life,  that  to  return  through  the  light  of  the  medium  and  recall 
all  the  names  of  friends  is  an  impossibility  until,  at  least,  I 
have  become  fully  accustomed  to  everything,  viz.,  light,  medium, 
yourself,  surroundings,  articles,  etc.  It  is  a  strange  and  in- 
teresting experience  at  first  I  can  assure  you.  At  first  we  see 
the  imprisoned  spirit  of  some  friend  on  earth  but  very  vaguely, 
and  at  the  moment  we  wonder  what  it  all  means,  and  before 
we  can  realize  where  we  are  or  to  whom  we  are  speaking,  our 
thoughts  become  a  mass,  as  it  were,  of  confused  half-registered 
and  incoherent  (pause)  ...  It  is  not  painful,  however,  to  our- 
selves, but  we  see  that  it  is  distressing  to  those  to  whom  we 


582   Farther  Extracts  from  Newbold's  Notes  [Bk.  II,  Ft  IV. 

are  trying  to  speak.  Why  H.,  my  dear  fellow,  you  have  no 
conception  of  what  it  is  like,  and  how  earnestly,  truthfully,  and 
sincerely  we  are  struggling  to  reach  our  friends.' " 

The  following  item  bears  on  Moses's  relation  to  telekinetic 
phenomena  as  explained  in  Chapters  VIII-X.  This  could 
not  well  be  given  in  those  places,  for  lack  of  sundry  explana- 
tions since  incidentally  arising. 

February  18,  1897. 

"  (Rector)  '  Now  supposing  the  whole  compartment  were  filled 
with  ether  from  our  own  clime,  I  could  enter,  drawing  mean- 
while chemical  energy  from  the  medium,  and  act  so  strongly 
on  some  of  your  objects  as  to  move  them  from  one  place  to 
another,  and  I  have  done  so  with  my  medium  here,  now  with 
me  here  [i.e.  Moses]  ...  it  is  not  easy  to  act  on  matter  in  this 
way,  and  we  are  liable  to  be  misunderstood,  because  persons  to 
whom  we  manifest  ourselves  in  this  way  do  not  accept  our  real 
presence; ...  I  dislike,  however,  to  make  myself  manifest  in  this 
way  by  the  moving  of  objects;  it  must  necessarily  injure  the 
medium  more  or  less,  besides  giving  the  wrong  impression  of 
our  friends ' " 

But  let  us  return  to  Imperator  and  his  followers. 

The  sort  of  George  Eliot  (?)  that  managed  to  get  through 
Mrs.  Piper  was  not  affected  as  I  am  by  them.  She  discourses 
thus  of  the  great  man(  ?)  himself  (Feb.  26,  1897) : 

" '  When  his  messages  are  confused  and  imperfect,  he  feels 
every  pang  of  yours.  Every  feeling  of  regret  or  disappoint- 
ment; yet  as  he  is  of  God  he  accepts  it  and  bears  the  sorrow 
patiently,  enduringly,  and  goes  through  it  all  with  your  own 
soul.  Yet  he  teaches  them  to  be  patient,  not  hurry,  make  every 
sound  audible  [presumably  through  the  medium.  H.H.],  every 
expression  as  perfect  as  possible  [here  is  George  Eliot  implying 
degrees  of  perfection!  H.H.],  assuring  them  that  they  will 
be  able  in  time  to  deliver  his  messages  clearly.  Should  you 
know  what  his  work  is,  you  would  not  feel  your  own.  Every 
word,  thought  and  deed  of  your  own  is  understood  by  him.  He 
sees  your  patience,  he  sees  the  struggle  you  are  having  with 
these  messengers,  your  disappointments,  the  little  despites  [sic! 
H.H.],  Aid  all.  When  he  appears  himself,  he  is  in  constant 
communication  with  the  Most  High,  and  as  he  labors  with  the 
machine  he  only  asks  for  help  and  goes  on  in  loving  trust  in 
Him  who  governs  all  things  wisely.  He ...  is  a  saint  and  was 
a  martyr  of  God  when  on  the  earth,  and  as  you  are  enduring 
many  things  which  in  part  make  man  a  higher  spiritual  being, 
he  despairs  not.  The  road  is  rough  and  stony  for  you  both, 
yet  it  is  His  Holy  Will  that  it  will  not  last  long.' " 


Ch.  XXXVI]    G.  P.  and  Rector  on  Imperator  583 

G.  P.  too  was  disposed  to  take  Imperator  seriously:  he 
writes  (March  10,  1897) : 

" '  How  is  His  Holiness  getting  on,  Hodgson  ?  He  is  very 
high:  farther  from  the  earth  than  anyone  who  comes  here. 
(H. :  He  talks  as  if  his  mind  were  different  in  some  way  from 
ours.)  [I  agree  thoroughly.  H.H.]  Well  if  you  could  see  him 
as  I  do,  you  would  say  it  was.  In  what  way  does  it  seem  differ- 
ent H.  ?  He  is  nearer  the  sight  of  God.  [H.  explains  that 
Imperator  does  not  talk  to  him  as  straightforwardly  as  he  would 
like,  and  does  not  go  into  detail.]  He  will  in  all  probability  if 
he  returns  a  few  times  in  succession.  He  is  a  good  deal  with 
your  friend  Moses  and  talks  with  him  in  the  same  way. 

"  '[H.  speaks  of  Moses's  lack  of  scientific  training  and  of 
G.  P.'s  and  G.  E.'s  possession  of  it,  to  which  G.  P.  assents.  In 
re  Imperator]  He  cannot,  neither  can  Moses,  nor  any  of  the 
rest  of  them  give  you  the  scientific  knowledge  which  you  wish 
Hodgson. ...  I  know  they  are  much  higher  and  far  beyond 
George  Eliot  and  G.  Pelham,  but  they  cannot  handle  this 

machine  as  we  can They  are  very  high  and  religious  and 

this  is  my  path 1  know  you  will  get  better  things  of  the 

kind  you  wish  in  time . . .  but  do  not  forget  me.  Yours  ever, 
G.  P.  George  Eliot  is  in  England,  working  like . . .  under  the 
light.' " 

Next  day  (March  11,  1897)  Eector  thus  dilates  and  dilates 
and  dilates  for  Imperator: 

" '  We  are  not  near  to  your  planet.  We  are  far  from  it.  You 
must  accept  our  teaching,  otherwise  you  will  be  lost.  We  come 
from  a  long  distance  to  speak  with  you,  friend  of  earth.  We 
are  called  upon  to  do  your  bidding  from  the  far  off  lands,  and 

at  a  very  late  day When  we  return  to  your  earthly  plane  we 

must,  and  do,  take  on  more  or  less  the  conditions  into  which 
we  pass.  However,  we  are  a  goodly  and  honest  band  of  spirits, 
who  would  under  no  circumstances,  no  matter  how  material  or 
unpleasant  the  conditions,  mislead  or  deceive  you  in  the  least. 
We  are  struggling  as  it  were  to  make  a  clear  pathway  to  your 
earth.  For  years  and  years  a  continuous  line  of  communica- 
tors more  or  less  near  the  earth  has  had  access  to  this  light. 
Unfortunately,  in  one  sense  it  is  true,  in  another  it  has  been  a 
very  good  thing.  ["  Good  thing  "  is  good  in  the  midst  of  such 
lofty  language!  H.H.]  It  has  been  the  means  of  convincing 
those  who  perhaps  would  have  remained  in  darkness  otherwise. 
Yet  it  does  open  the  way  for  many  interruptions  that  would 
not  occur  under  other  circumstances ' " 

Of  course  such  modest  gentlemen  as  Imperator  and  his 
gang  were  entirely  too  high-toned  to  keep  company  with  that 


584  Farther  Extracts  from  Newbold's  Notes  [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV. 

"  preposterous  scoundrel,"  dear  old  Phinuit,  who  was  a  better 
gentleman  than  any  of  them.  But  they  seem  to  have  put  up 
a  job  to  make  a  prig  of  him.  Rector  says  (March  19,  1897)  : 

" '  We  have  removed  the  former  leading  control  to  a  much 
higher  plane,  and  he  has  passed  on  from  the  earthly  condition 
to  a  higher  sphere  altogether.  We  have  prayed  and  earnestly 
worked  for  his  salvation,  and  although  he  has  been  ofttimes 
misjudged,  he  was  not  of  the  highest.  We  have  allowed  a  spirit 
sent  to  show  him  a  much  higher  and  nobler  life  than  he  had 
known  before.  It  is  not  wise  to  allow  lower  minds  to  receive 
communications  from  a  spirit  when  first  controlling,  who  brings 
all  such  into  the  conditions  of  the  earth,  earthy.' " 

On  May  24,  1897,  the  Muck-a-muck  himself  dilates  some 
more: 

" '  We  propose  to  substitute  instead  of  the  rough,  inharmoni- 
ous and  uncultivated  dialect  a  softer  melody Instead  of  per- 
mitting such  messengers  as  some  who  have  hitherto  brought 
messages  using  such  dialect  as  we  have  described  we  propose 
to  keep  all  such  in  a  state  of  penitence  and  servitude.  We  pro- 
pose to  render  our  services  to  all  such  and  prepare  them  for  the 
higher  and  better  life  rather  than  to  permit  them  to  return  to 
thee  or  to  other  minds  of  exalted  science. . . .  We  are  referring 

chiefly  to  the  earthbound  spirit  Dr.  Schliville He  was  not 

exactly  of  the  earth  earthy  but  bound  here  by  the  attractions 
of  earthly  minds. . . .  Say  to  thy  medium  the  following  [the 
medium  was  in  trance,  remember,  and  on  waking  had  very  little 
recollection  of  her  dreams.  H.H.]  Take  exercise  in  the  open 
fields  which  God  the  Most  High  hath  prepared  for  such.  Cast 
out  all  unpleasant  thoughts.  Ask  him  to  give  help  and  it  will 

be  given.  Say  to  her  the  pure  in  heart  shall  see  God Let 

not  the  trials  of  life  burden  the  soul.  Ask  Him  to  assist  thee 
and  throw  thyself  in  all  confidence  upon  Him  and  He  will. 
Have  faith  in  Him,  cast  thy  burdens  upon  Him.  Friend,  light, 
strength,  happiness  and  all  good  will,  if  these  instructions  are 
obeyed,  follow ;  otherwise  may  God  have  mercy  upon  the  soul.' " 

"  (June  1,  2,  1897.)  '  In  regard  to  thy  former  acquaintance 
and  assistant  viz.  Schliville  he  hath  been  taken  by  us  to  the 
higher  and  better  life.  No  one  could  possibly  need  such  help 
more  than  he  did.  [Messages  from  H.]  It  is  well.  We  will 
take  thy  messages  of  kindness  to  him  personally.  We  know 
well  his  condition.  We  know  well  the  whys  and  wherefores. 
We  understand  it  all.  In  him  there  was  no  intentional  evil. 
Never.  But  he  lingered  for  so  long  a  time  just  beyond  the 
realm  of  the  higher  life  it  ofttimes  misled  him,  i.e.  his  condi- 
tion, meeting  with  so  many  who  were  of  the  earth  earthy,  those 


Ch.  XXXVI]  Removal  of  Phinuit.   Puzzle  of  Imperator   585 

who  never  knew  anything  of  God,  those  who  as  we  have  said 
were  of  the  earth . . .  explains  a  good  deal.' " 

Perhaps  they  did  him  good,  and  I  am  confident  that  even 
they  couldn't  spoil  him. 
April  27,  1898,  Mr.  D.  writes: 

"'Nothing  but  good  exists  here  [In  the  medium?  H.H.] 
now  that  Phinuit  is  removed.  It  was  a  mistake  to  leave  him 
here  so  long.  He  did  exist  as  we  do,  but  he  was  earthbound,  and 
deteriorated  first  of  all  by  the  light's  being  in  contact  with  lower 
minds  as  it  was  at  first,  and  that  drew  him  to  it  strongly  and 
held  him  there.  But  now  since  the  elevation  of  the  light  [By 
Imperator  &  Co.  taking  charge  and  selecting  the  sitters.  H.H.], 
only  the  best  and  purest  conditions  exist  here.' " 

Amen! 

May  31,  1897. 

" '  t  Friend  we  will  caution  thee  once  more  to  be  wary.  Trust 
few,  love  all  [Now  this  really  is  good,  and  the  rest  of  the  pas- 
sage is  not  more  than  half  bad:  all  of  which  deepens  the  mys- 
tery. H.H.]  Let  all  live,  disturb  them  not.  Each  may  have  his 
or  her  own  mind  which  lieth  not  with  the  power  of  mortal  man. 
to  change.  Leave  all  such  to  Him  who  governs  all  things  wisely. 
Go  not  among  pernicious  circles  unless  thou  canst  do  such 

good Let  each  one  rest  content  and  assist  them  not  for  the 

sake  of  cultivating  curiosity.  To  the  intelligent  and  pure  in 
thought  such  as  thou  dost  chiefly  associate  with  throw  all  light 
possible.' " 

On  seeing  the  MS.  (or  rather  TS.)  of  this  chapter,  my  kind 
friend  Professor  Newbold  asks  whether,  as  the  controls  G.  P. 
and  (later)  Hodgson  take  Imperator  and  his  party  seriously, 
I  do  not,  in  treating  them  in  a  spirit  of  levity,  show  less  con- 
fidence in  the  G.  P.  and  Hodgson  controls  than  I  really  feel. 
I  wish  somebody  would  tell  me  how  much  I  really  feel.  And 
if  he  tells  me  on  Sunday,  I  wish  he  would  tell  me  again  at 
the  end  of  the  week.  Sometimes  I  feel  a  good  deal,  and  some- 
times I  don't. 

This  state  of  mind  would  Beem  to  be  a  healthy  mysticism, 
if  such  a  thing  is  possible;  and  as  knowledge  accumulates,  it 
will  of  course  be  outgrown,  and  give  place  to  the  same  state 
of  mind  on  new  manifestations  from  the  Unknown.  A  lead- 
ing psychical  researcher  holds  that  it  is  a  student's  business 
to  make  up  his  mind  on  this  subject,  and  stick  to  it  until  new 
discoveries  change  it.  That,  perhaps  minus  the  qualifications 


586   Farther  Extracts  from  Newlold's  Notes  [Bk.  II,  Pt  IY 

regarding  new  discoveries,  is  the  state  of  mind  of  the  danger- 
ous mystic,  and  probably  has  impeded  the  usefulness  of  the 
eminent  researcher  who  holds  to  it. 

Imperator  &  Co.  don't  look  to  me  as  nearly  genuine  as  the 
controls  who  are  known  to  have  lived.  There  seems  the  same 
difference  that  there  is  between  a  painting  out  of  an  artist's 
imagination,  and  a  portrait  from  a  real  model. 

Of  course  if  Moses  and  Mrs.  Piper  and  her  sitters  created 
them,  they  were  not  in  the  assumed  "  spirit  world  "  for  G.  P. 
and  Hodgson  and  "  George  Eliot,"  to  become  acquainted  with 
and  so  their  allusions  to  them  must  come  from  meeting  them 
in  the  medium's  mind.  I  have  already  given  my  guess  as  to 
George  Eliot's  place  there. 

But  whatever  I  may  feel  regarding  the  genuineness  of  the 
controls,  does  not  traverse  what  I  feel  regarding  their  theo- 
logical views  and  tastes:  I  have  absolute  confidence  in  the 
genuineness  of  the  Pope,  but  in  his  theological  views  and 
tastes,  he  has  the  misfortune  to  differ  from  me,  and  even 
probably  would  endure  that  misfortune  with  equanimity  if  he 
were  aware  of  it.  Now  the  idea  that  as  soon  as  anybody  gets 
into  the  other  world,  he  "  knows  it  all,"  is  about  played  out ; 
and  the  fact  that  a  control  does  not  "  know  it  all,"  and  is  sub- 
ject to  some  of  the  aberrations  he  was  subject  to  here,  is  to 
me  no  detraction  from  genuineness,  but  is  even  beginning  to 
take  on,  in  my  perverted  terminology,  something  of  an  "  evi- 
dential "  look,  and  to  my  homely  emotions,  rather  a  comforting 
one.  I  have  several  valued  friends  whose  hands  are  rough  and 
not  always  clean,  who  would  feel  very  uneasy  if  they  had  to 
go  to  court,  but  who  are  going  to  Heaven  if  anybody  is.  Now 
if,  according  to  the  old  conceptions,  they  were  to  go  to  the  court 
of  the  Most  High,  it  would  take  a  miracle  to  make  them  at 
ease  there.  But  miracles  too  are  played  out  since  evolution 
came  in,  and  I  expect  to  find,  in  the  next  world,  these  friends 
and  my  old  friends  G.  P.  and  Hodgson,  very  much  the  same 
sort  of  good  fellows  they  were  here,  with  all  their  lovable 
faults,  but  somewhat  relieved  from  their  unlovable  ones ;  and 
if  their  lovable  ones  include  believing  in  such  characters,  real 
or  imaginary,  as  Imperator  &  Co.,  so  much  the  better  for 
Imperator  &  Co.,  and  not  a  whit  the  worse  that  I  can  see  for 
the  genuineness  of  G.  P.  and  Hodgson.  I  know*a  good  many 


Ch.  XXXYI]    Inconsistencies  regarding  Impemtor         587 

substantial  people  who  believe  in  a  good  many  characters  whose 
existence  is  exceedingly  doubtful,  but  that  belief  does  not 
weaken  my  faith  in  the  substantiality  of  those  who  hold  it. 

But  G.  P.,  and  Hodgson  later  as  control,  profess  to  be  seeing 
and  talking  with  these  people  constantly !  So  did  Moses  when 
he  was  here,  and  he  was  genuine  enough  here.  He  may  have 
been  fooled,  but  if  he  was,  he  lost  none  of  his  own  actuality. 
And  if  the  controls  G.  P.  and  Hodgson  are  fooled  in  the  same 
way,  I  don't  see  how  it  affects  their  genuineness,  any  more 
than  it  affected  the  genuineness  of  Moses  incarnate. 

"  But  it's  not  a  very  inviting  state  of  affairs  over  there,  if 
they  could  be  so  fooled !  "  Perhaps  we  hadn't  better  attempt 
to  pass  on  the  state  of  affairs  from  any  one  feature :  its  com- 
plexities and  possibilities,  even  from  the  little  some  of  us  sup- 
pose ourselves  to  know,  are  beyond  us. 

But  don't  some  researchers  seem  inconsistent  in  accepting 
the  modern  idea  of  the  interchangeable  fluidity  of  mind,  and 
still  applying  a  rigidity  in  questions  affecting  the  controls 
that  they  would  not  apply  even  regarding  living  men?  The 
whole  subject,  however,  is,  so  far,  little  more  than  a  mass  of 
inconsistencies. 

Miscellaneous  Items 

These  notes  contain  an  account  of  a  haunted  house,  where 
the  idea  is  given  that  controls  can  manifest  in  such  places  only 
when  one  of  the  occupants  happens  to  be  a  medium.  I  have 
not  made  room  to  treat  specifically  of  hauntings,  but  some 
little  light  may  be  thrown  upon  them  incidentally  in  what  I 
have  been  able  to  say  of  telekinesis  and  visions.  That  there  is 
enough  in  the  subject  to  justify  more  attention  than  it  has 
received,  I  am  confident. 

The  notes  contain  many  declarations  of  the  desire  of 
"spirits"  to  open  communication  through  anybody  whom 
they  find  having  "  light." 

There  is  abundance  of  such  little  by-plays  from  the  con- 
trols as :  "  I  heard  you  particularly  well  then,"  or :  "  Say  that 
again,  please ! "  I  don't  consider  these  "  put  up,"  and  am 
crass  enough  to  give  them  some  "  evidential "  weight. 

Some  control,  not  worth  while  to  hunt  up  again,  says  that 
the  soul  originates  at  the  union  of  the  ovum  and  the  sperma- 
tozoon. The  Law,  I  believe,  regards  that  compound  as  a 


588   Farther  Extracts  from  Newbold's  Notes  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

human  being  having  rights,  and  the  control's  dictum  may 
have  been  telepathic  or  teloteropathic ;  but  the  dictum  is 
somewhat  arbitrary,  and  not  entirely  in  accordance  with  what 
I  have  quoted  and  suggested  in  Chapter  III. 

The  notes  also  contain  some  rather  striking  instances  of 
the  control  "  knowing  better  "  than  the  sitter,  but  I  have  prob- 
ably quoted  enough  elsewhere,  though  now  while  writing,  for 
this  belated  insertion,  what  may  be  the  last  words  of  my  long 
task,  I  wish  that  I  had  devoted  more  attention  to  that  feature, 
and  hope  that  some  of  my  readers  may.  It  is  perhaps  as  evi- 
dential as  anything  we  have,  at  least  of  inflow  from  the  Cos- 
mic Soul,  which  comes  very  near  to  meaning  immortality — in 
some  mode  of  life  beyond  our  clear  appreciation  and  our 
anthropomorphic  preconceptions,  and,  not  impossibly,  beyond 
our  broadest  desires. 

The  following  scraps  are  suggestive  as  well  as  amusing — 
suggestive  mainly  of  chaos,  however,  it  seems  to  me. 

June  25,  1894. 

"  Present :  R.  H.,  W.  R.  N.    Phinuit  appears.    As  he  comes 
H.  calls  into  his  [the  medium's.  H.H.]  ear: 
"  '  One-ery,  two-ery,  ickery  am 
Fillazy,  Follazy,  nicholas  jam 
Queeby,  Quawby  Irish  man 
Tickle'em,  Tackle'em— Buck. 

[Phinuit  recognizes  Billie,  but  is  puzzled  by  this  token  of  H.'s 
presence]  '  Billie,  have  you  turned  into  Hodgson  ? '  (R.  H. : 
Hello,  Dr.,  I  was  only  playing  a  joke  on  you,  and  that's  where 
you  got  left  too.)  [Phinuit  laughs  heartily  and  evidently  ap- 
preciates the  joke  as  well  as  anyone.]  " 

"  [G.  P.  writes]  '  How  are  you,  H. — how  are  you  my  good 
friend  [shakes  hands]  . . .  got  something  for  you  ...  all  right . . . 
tell  Dr.  to  keep  quiet  H.  while  I  am  hearing  voices.' " 

June  19,  1895. 

"  [Phinuit  and  W.  R.  N.]  (You  know,  Doctor,  most  scientific 
men  don't  believe  in  you  spirits  at  all.)  '  I  know  that.  But 
what  do  they  think  I  am?  Don't  they  believe  in  me?  (They 
think  you're  just  one  of  the  medium's  dreams.  She  gets  to 
sleep  and  dreams  she's  a  French  Doctor.)  Oh  my  [with  infinite 
disgust],  people  had  better  say  it  again.  I'm  individually, 
distinctly,  absolutely  my  own  self,  I  have  nothing  at  all  to  do 
with  that  woman:  the  body  is  light  to  me,  it  is  illuminated. 
(Are  you  talking  'to  the  light?)  I'm  right  inside  the  body. 
(But  Mr.  Pelham  says  he  isn't.)  You  see  my  hand  [holding 


Ch.  XXXVI]  'PUnuit  on  Q.  P.  589 

it  up],  that's  my  hand.  When  George  comes  I'll  go  out  to  keep 
the  people  away  and  hold  the  machine.  When  I  take  the  hand[  ?] 
you  can  divide  the  light.  He  takes  that  part  of  the  light  and 
uses  it.  I'll  tell  you  another  thing.  While  George  talks  to 
you,  if  it  was  not  for  interruption  I  could  talk  at  the  same  time. 
George's  thoughts  have  no  more  to  do  with  mine  than  yours 
have.  (Can  you  read  my  thoughts?)  I  know  your  whole 
thoughts.  [Elsewhere  Phinuit  denies  this  flatly  several  times, 
and  here  he  goes  on  to  compromise.  H.H.]  I  can't  tell  the 
individual  thoughts  as  well.  [To  George]  You  keep  quiet, 
George,  you'll  have  plenty  of  time  to  write.  That  George,  he 
says  you  seem  more  clear  than  before  as  if  your  body  was 
double  and  your  mind  was  acting  rapidly.  Your  spirit  looks 
light.  Do  you  see  my  friend  Captain  in  the  body,  Billie? 
(You  mean  Prof.  Lodge?)  Yes.  (No,  I  don't  know  him.) 
Won't  you  give  my  warmest  love,  and  tell  him  I'd  like  to  hear 
from  him,  like  to  have  a  message  from  him,  and  anything  I 
can  do  for  him  I'd  be  glad  to  do,  or  give  him  advice.  Here's 
George  whistling  around,  he  wants  to  write.  [Hand  has  been 
twitching  for  some  time.  I  ask  Phinuit  if  George  is  coming  in.] 
No,  he's  only  walking  around  the  light  and  just  whistling  and 
singing  and  talking  to  himself.  (How  does  he  make  the  differ- 
ence between  writing  and  talking?)  He  can  talk  closer  than 
I  can,  he  has  no  ties  and  no  weight  to  hold  him  down,  like  this 
[indicating  body  of  medium].  Very  wonderful  and  bright,  that 
fellow  George.  You  tell  the  Captain  and  Fred  I  wish  they'd 
send  me  a  message  besides  what  I  see  from  their  thoughts.  I 
want  everybody  to  be  good  and  true  to  themselves;  then  there 
are  no  regrets  here,  but  the  soul  is  weak.' " 

Last  Clear  Glimpses  of  G.  P. 

The  following  bits  of  chaff  are  not  what  some  people  con- 
sider evidential,  though  some  other  people  may: 

June  25,  1894.  Hodgson  and  Newbold  sitting. 
"  (N. :  Mr.  Pelham,  I  wish  to  find  a  lady  to  whom  this  book 
belonged.  It  is  important.)  [Shows  book.]  '. .  .important . . . 
I'll  see ...  [to  H.]  Would  you  do  this  for  me  were  you  here 
(R.  H. :  I  think  I  would,  George.)  Do  you  think  so  H.  would 
you,  what  rubbish  H.  you  are  too  fond  of  your  old  body  you 
old  rascal  but  this  is  the  time  I  caught  you  napping  [H.  and 
N.  laugh.]  (H. :  Are  you  sure  you  aren't  napping  yourself, 
George?)  not  much. . .  I  like  it  when  they  get  out  of  my  way 
I  don't  mind  much  I  would  not  have  your  body  anyway,  not 
much  (N. :  Well,  I  think  it's  a  pretty  fair  sort  of  body.)  Yes 
but  this  is  a  joke  on  him  because  I  haven't  one  just  now 
(H. :  Well,  you  needn't  talk,  George,  your  body  is  a  puff  of  gas, 
— a  sort  of  gaseous  mass.)  Well  I  like  it  and  I  won't  swop 
with  you  H.  Adieu.  [Phinuit  reappears  grumbling]  I  never 


590   Farther  Extracts  from  Newlold's  Notes  [Bk.  II,  Ft  IV 

saw  the  like  of  that  fellow  George.  There's  another  here  trying 
to  say  something  but  he  gave  no  chance  at  all.  When  he  gets 
hold  he  keeps  hold  I  tell  you  Hodgson.  (R.  H. :  Dr.  take  this 
book  won't  you  and  find  the  person  whose  influence  is  on  it.) 
All  right,  Hodgson,  I'll  surprise  you  both  next  time . . .  she 
taught  in  the  body.  I'll  find  her  Hodgson  and  talk  with  her  and 
tell  you  all  about  her.  Oh  Billie  I  never  saw  a  fellow  like  you. 
Oh  you  have  so  many  here  that  want  to  talk  to  you.  Every  day 
there  is  a  new  one ...  a  perfect  crowd  (N. :  Give  them  my  love 
Dr.  and  tell  them  I  hope  to  come  over  myself  and  see  them  after 
a  while.)  [Phinuit  bursts  into  a  harsh  laugh]  Oh  Billie  don't 
you  worry  about  that.  That's  just  one  thing  you  can  be  sure 
of.  You  can't  help  coming  Billie  no  matter  how  much  you 
want  to  [Continues  chuckling]  You've  got  to  go  through  what 
we've  all  gone  through.  Never  mind,  Billie,  you'll  never  be 
sorry  you  came.' " 

June  17,  1895.    Newbold  sitting.     G.  P.  in  control. 

"  (How  do  you  make  a  difference  between  writing  and  talk- 
ing?) 'I  do  not  understand.  [Question  repeated.]  There 
seems  ...  is  no  difference  to  me.  I  only  know  that  I  am  writing 
by  having  been  told  so  by  Hodgson.  (So  that  is  purely  acci- 
dental?) Certainly.  Did  you  not  see  me  bow  my  head  to 

H ?  (When  H.  went  out?)  Certainly.  (But  George  you 

didn't  bow,  you  waved  your  hand?)  Don't  you  understand  the 
difference  between  a  fellow's  head  and  feet  for  instance?  (Did 
you  try  to  bow  ?)  Did.  Certainly,  bowed  my  head  of  course,  so. 
[Hand  rises  and  bends  towards  imaginary  Hodgson.]  (Well 
it  did  not  look  like  a  bow  here.)  What  then?  That's  my  head, 
you  goose.  [We  both  laugh.]  (Well,  in  fact  the  medium's  band 
rose  up  and  bowed  or  waved.)  Well,  I'll  be  hanged,  if  that 
doesn't  get  me. . . .  Well,  I'll  have  to  give  this  up  as  beaten . . . 
I  am  beaten.  (Never  mind,  we  understood.)  Well,  you  are 

clever,  if  it  looked  that  way Well  I  am  glad  to  know  you 

any  way.  Question  ?  (What  is  Phinuit  about  while  you  talk  to 
-the  light?)  Phinuit?  He's  talking  to  John  H.  and  a  little 
million  others  at  the  same  time  helping  me  hold  them  back 
and  keep  them  from  interrupting  me. 

"  * (What  sort  of  conduct  in  this  life  prepares  best  for 

ihe  other  ?)  Conduct  ? . . .  They  should  lead  the  best  and  high- 
est, purest  and  noblest  life  when  in  the  protoplasm  body  [If 
you  don't  believe  (I'm  not  sure  I  do)  that  G.  P.  was  talking,  ask 
yourself :  How  does  Mrs.  Piper  reserve  this  use  of  "  protoplasm  " 
for  G.  P.  among  all  her  characters?  H.H.]  or  else  there  is  a 
distinction  after  the  ethereal  ego  leaves  it,  in  other  words  they 
are  earth  bound  or  drawn  to  earth  in  thought  more  than  they 
would  be  otherwise.  For  example,  see  how  I  have  lingered,  yet 
I  cannot  say  that  I  am  unhappy,  because  I  wish  to  enlighten 
the  world  on  psychological  subjects  as  much  as  possible,  and  I 


Ch.  XXXVI]  a.  P.  Bids  Farewell  591 

could  not  have  done  so  had  I  been  a  perfect  man.  (Does  not 
that  seem  rather  hard?)  hard,  not  to  me.  I  enjoy  it.  (Sup- 
pose a  perfect  man  wanted  to  do  the  work  you  are  doing,  what 
then?)  Well,  there  are  no  perfect  men.  (No,  but  more  perfect. 
Suppose  they  wished  to  come  back?)  Well,  they  would  but  not 
to  the  extent  that  I  could  for  instance.  Then  that  does  not 
explain  it  all  by  any  means.  Some  are . . .  how  can  I  say  this  ? 
[Note  as  he  goes  on,  the  touch  of  modesty!  This,  of  course, 
was  "put  up"  by  Mrs.  Piper(?)  H.H.]  (Suppose  you  leave  it 
until  to-morrow,  and  think  how  to  put  it.)  Some  are  more 
intellectual  than  others,  some  have  greater  and  more  interest 
in  these  subjects  than  others,  some  have  more  friends  here  than 
others,  also  some  are  more  intense,  have  more  feeling  and  are, 
in  other  words,  more  intense . . .  have  more  intense  feeling  for 
friends  than  others,  such  was  the  case  with  yours  truly — under- 
stand?'" 

June  21,  1895. 

"  [G.  P.  writes]   '  I  am  here  with  you Say  old  chap,  I 

suppose  you  think  that  I  am  only — [left  hand  has  clenched  a 
fist  and  is  slowly  approaching  right] — tell  John  H.  to  keep 
out  please.  [N.  grasps  left  hand  and  says  '  Mr.  H.,  George 
says  kindly  go  out  for  the  present  as  he  wishes  to  talk.'  Left 
hand  relaxes;  right  hand  writes,  feebly],  all  right,  to  please 
you  George  I  will.' " 

April  23,  1897.     Hodgson  sitting. 

"  (Rector)  '  We  would  warn  you  not  to  rely  too  much  upon 
the  statements  made  as  tests  so  called  by  your  friend  George. 
He  is  too  far  away  from  your  earth  now  to  be  clear  in  regard 
to  tests,  test  conditions,  etc.  His  spirit  is  pure,  his  mind  sin- 
cere, his  whole  life  here  is  one  of  honor  and  one  to  be  respected 
by  us  all.  Yet  we  would  speak  the  truth  and  say  his  work  in 
your  field  is  done.  No  one  whom  we  know  is  more  active  or 
more  sincere,  yet  friend  let  us  say  once  more  that  while  his 
intentions  are  the  very  best,  the  conditions  are  such  as  to  render 
it  impossible  for  him  to  reach  you  as  he  would  like.  He  has 
passed  beyond '" 

May  20,  1897.    Hodgson  sitting. 

" ' No  spirit  should  ever  be  allowed  to  use  the  voice  of 

any  medium  unless  they  have  passed  beyond  the  earthly  sphere 
(By  so  doing  injury  is  likely  to  be  wrought  on  the  medium's 
physical?)  Yes,  unmistakable  harm.  Friend,  we  have  nour- 
ished, tended  and  protected  this  body  from  the  earliest  moment 
of  our  attraction,  also  thine  own.  Let  us  ask  if  thou  hast  not 
seen  greater  improvement  from  thine  observation  (H.  Says  he 
has,  both  Mrs.  P.  and  he  are  better  etc.  that  he  could  not  have 
stood  the  drain  so  long  otherwise  etc.)  No  friend  it  would  not 
have  been  possible  because  of  the  conditions.  They  were  so 
unsettled  and  inharmonious  with  the  higher  intelligences.  It 


592   Farther  Extracts  from  Newbold's  Notes  [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

was  high  time  that  the  higher  activities  were  called  upon. 
Much  harm  had  been  carried  on  for  many  years  i.e.  to  the 
physical  due  to  the  undeveloped  condition  of  the  leading  con- 
trol, yet  to  repeat  the  ancient  adage,  "  No  great  loss  without 
some  small  gain."  Thou  couldst  have  gone  on  for  years  with 
the  same  results  had  not  thy  friend  (G.  P.)  appeared  upon 
the  scene  to  lend  a  helping  hand  yet  he  (Phinuit)  was  ofttimes 
misjudged  and  not  infrequently  perplexed  by  the  baser  and 

lower  minds  of  mortals We  never  fail  to  offer  up  our  thanks 

to  Him  for  the  privileges  he  allowed  thy  friend  Pelham 

" '  He  is  still  holding  thy  interests  at  heart.  He  never  fails 
to  speak  of  thee  and  about  thee  in  the  most  tender  and  endear- 
ing terms. . . .  He  is  now  going  on  to  the  higher  and  happier 
realm  where  in  due  time  he  will  be  well  rewarded  for  his  never 
ending  patience,  persistence  and  sincerity.  (G.  P.  is  represented 
as  sending  messages  to  his  friends.  H.  replies  in  like  manner 
and  sends  also  love  from  W.  R.  N.)  Friend  thou  knowest  not 
the  happiness  these  expressions  coming  from  the  human  hearts 
of  mortals  will  give  to  him.' " 

June  8,  1897. 

"  (G.  P.)  '  I  am  still  with  you  but  oh  so  changed.  I  may  not 
have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  you  in  this  way  for  a  long  time  [i.e. 
much  longer.  H.H.]  I  am  here  now  for  the  purpose  of  clearing 

up  my  own  messages Give  my  love  to  Billie  (Newbold)  and 

tell  him  that  his  interests  will  always  be  mine.  I  am  glad  to 
see  him  so  happy.  (Messages  to  many  friends)  ...  I  will  try 
and  reach  you  through  the  second  light  [Beginning  of  pass 
sentence]  Do  not  accept  anything  as  coming  from  me  unless  I 
give  you  this.  I  have  been  trying  to  tell  Billie  for  some  time 
and  hope  to  yet.  He  has  light.  (I  know  it.)  ' ' 

G.  P.  reappears  after  a  long  absence. 

Nov.  24,  1898.    Hodgson  and  Newbold  sitting. 

" '  Give  heaps  of  love  to  Billie  and  tell  him  I  have  a  great 
deal  to  tell  him  and  tell  him  how  grateful  I  am.  I  have  a  great 
deal  to  thank  him  for  (Apparently  for  work  in  earlier  sittings 
under  difficult  conditions.  W.  R.  N.  tells  H.  all  is  clear  sailing 
for  him  now.  H.  says  I  do  not  know  that  anything  is  abso- 
lutely fixed.)  We  do.  We  do  but  you  do  not,  so  we  laugh  ah  ah 
ah.  (Well,  who  is  it  that  laughs?)  I  do.  Q.  does.  Fred 

smiles   and   John   H grins.      So   we   are   all   happy   and 

pleased.' " 

Hodgson's  Family  and  Friends 

A  couple  of  lines  back  is  an  allusion  to  "  Q,"  who  can  now 
be  frankly  designated  as  Hodgson's  early  love.  She  first 
appeared  in  Chapter  XXIX.  There  also  appeared  his  cousin 
Fred,  who  also  "  smiled  "  with  Q  and  the  other  friends  in  the 


Ch.  XXXVI]     Hodgson's  Intimates  as  Controls  593 

above  paragraph,  and  from  whom,  a  message  is  given  in  an 
early  page  of  this  chapter. 

Hodgson  refrained  from  publishing  other  alleged  communi- 
cations from  these  friends,  and  some  from  members  of  his 
family.  Now  that  he  is  gone,  and  presumably  past  any  care 
for  reticence,  his  executor  authorizes  me  to  give  the  few  that 
are  accessible. 

His  second  Piper  report  has  generally  been  taken  to  base 
his  conversion  to  spiritism  on  the  G.  P.  utterances.  It  cannot 
be  doubted  that  the  withheld  matter  also  had  its  influence 
in  enabling  him  not  only  to  overcome  the  negative  implica- 
tions of  the  Wilde  and  Myers  letters,  but  to  take  seriously 
much  in  the  manifestations  of  Imperator  and  Co.  which  seems 
to  me  preposterous.  It  must  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that 
there  was  much  else  in  those  manifestations  for  which  even 
such  a  critic  as  James  had  great  respect. 

Before  you  judge  Hodgson,  try  to  put  yourself  in  his  place. 

The  following  purports  to  be  from  a  nephew : 

May  27,  1897. 

"  We  bring  to  thee  a  little  child  who  is  desirous  of  speaking. 
He  is  a  relative  of  thine  own.  Come  here  Uncle  Richard  and 
tell  me  about  those  large,  very  large  balls  and  where  they  are. 
(Those  you  had  in  the  body?)  Yes,  and  I  cannot  find  any  of 
them.  They  must  all  be  lost  in  the  garden.  [Gives  name  of 
ALERIC— should  be  ERIC.]  (Did  you  not  talk  to  me  before?) 
Yes,  once,  but  not  as  I  do  now.  I  told  brother  Leigh  to  say 
my  words  for  me.  [H.  Mentions  cap,  drum  and  horse,  which 

are  recognized  with  excitement.]  My  whistle My  picture 

book.  Richard  and  Robin  were  two  brave  men.  They  sleep 
in  bed  the  clock  strikes  ten.  (Who  used  to  say  that?)  I  did 
for  Leigh. 

" Grandpa  is  here  and  such  a  good  kind  man.  He  tells 

us  long  stories  about  God  [Says  he  helps  his  sister  Enid  to 
write.]  (Tell  me  more  about  the  nursery  book.)  I  forgot  who 
tore  it.  I  threw  it  down  behind  my  little  bed  but  I  did  not 
tear  it  Uncle  Richard.  I  saw  tbe  Old  Woman  who  lived  in 
a  shoe  in  it  and  do  you  forget  Primrose  Hill  was  dirty?  What 
is  that  big  black  thing  you  wear  Uncle  Richard?  (Where?) 
All  over  your  pretty  white  body.  (Do  you  mean  my  clothes?) 
Is  that  what  you  call  it?  Well,  they  must  be  very  heavy  clothes. 
(Perhaps  you  mean  my  heavy  body?)  Does  it  pain?  (Because 
it  is  so  heavy?)  Yes,  I  think  you  cannot  run  very  fast.  (Not 
as  fast  as  you.  How  do  you  move?)  I  walk  about  all  over  the 
gardens  here,  and  sometimes  I  run  very  fast Mamma 


594   Farther  Extracts  from  Newbold's  Notes  [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

wears  a  heavy  thing  like  you. . .  (All  the  people  in  my  world 
wear  them,  don't  they?)  Yes.  Why  don't  they  take  them  off 
and  come  into  this  light  place,  Uncle  Richard. . .  Tell  my 
Mamma  I  love  her  so  much,  also  my  sister.  I  cannot  think 
any  more  now.  Don't  let  her  pull  my  hair  when  she  brushes 
it.  Nance.  Goodbye.  Catch  me  now.  Aleric.  A  bright  lad 
that  but  memories  will  linger." 

The  following  claims  to  be  from  a  cousin: 
June  9,  1897. 

"  Do  you  recall  her  ?  (Yes,  indeed.)  She  is  here  beside  (What 
is  her  first  name,  Rector?)  Ellen,  E.  V.  E.  V.  Osborne  as  she 
speaks  it  if  I  heard  it  distinctly.  Speak  to  her  kindly.  (Is  this 
Mrs.  Osborn  or  Miss  Osborn?)  Mrs.  [?]  (Is  that  Mrs.?) 
Speak  kindly.  [Question  repeated]  Miss.  Miss.  No  Mrs. 
I  do  not  get  a  distinct  sound  as  yet.  Wait  a  moment.  Yes, 
Miss.  (Miss?)  Yes  Miss.  (Where  did)  I  used  to  know  the 
mortal  man  here.  (Whereabouts?)  I  used  to  know  Australia 
Well  (Did  you  visit  at  our  house!)  Yes,  help  me  to  reach 
you  and  I  will  help  you.  (Is  this  Gertrude  Osborn?)  [Much 
excitement]  Yes,  Yes  Yes  Yes  I  know  Miss  [Q]  I  am 
with  her  now.  [Excitement  then  calm.] 

"  Where  and  what  place  is  this  to  which  I  have  come  and  to 
which  I  am  so  strongly  attracted.  Oh  friend  you  know  very 
little  as  yet.  What  a  change  has  come  over  me.  Oh  what  a 
change!  My  soul  lives,  my  body  lies  in  clay.  My  thoughts 
go  flying  through  a  world  of  space.  My  soul  is  so  free.  I  feel 
like  a  bird  on  its  wings  flying  everywhere,  seeing  everything 
yet  recalling  few.  Oh,  what  a  beautiful  place  this  is,  so  light, 
so  really  light,  so  very  light  and  I  am  so  free.  Who  will  miss 
me?  Ah,  no  one  should.  I  have  no  pain.  It  was  all  a  dream 
a  huge  delirium,  I  am  free.  Oh,  do  you  know  why  I  come  here. 
I  found  the  portals  open.  I  glided  through.  But  oh,  it  made 
my  head  whirl  so  terribly.  I  felt  for  the  moment  that  I  was 
going  through  it  all  again.  I  never  was  so  free  before.  What 
can  I  say?  what  can  I  do?  Oh,  I  hear  them  singing  and  all 
to  comfort  me.  I  am  so  free,  I  am  so  free." 

About  1895  "  Q "  began  ostensibly  to  manifest  through 
Mrs.  Piper,  and  Hodgson  devoted  a  large  share  of  his  modest 
income  to  personal  sittings.  The  reports  of  these  were  prob- 
ably seen  by  only  very  few  of  his  friends,  but  are,  I  under- 
stand, in  the  possession  of  the  S.  P.  R. 

Touching  the  appearance  of  Q  after  so  many  years  in 
which,  so  far  as  we  know,  she  had  made  only  a  couple  of 
faint  manifestations  in  Hodgson's  early  sittings,  one  ration- 


Ch.  XXXVI]   Hodgson  and  the  "  Q  "  Control  595 

alistic  interpretation  would  of  course  be  that  during  the 
period  when  Hodgson  had  no  faith  in  Q's  continued  existence, 
and  sought  the  love  of  "  Huldah "  for  what  he  assumed  to 
be  the  score  or  two  of  his  remaining  years,  his  mind  did 
not  contain  much  that  would  telepathically  provoke  from 
Mrs.  Piper  reactions  simulating  Q.  When  he  first  sat  with 
Mrs.  Piper,  of  course,  Q  had  enough  of  a  place  in  his  mind 
to  awaken  some  reactions  from  Mrs.  P.,  but  after  his  dis- 
appointment with  "  Huldah,"  and  amid  the  strong  sugges- 
tions of  a  future  life  starting  in  the  G.  P.  experience,  that 
place  greatly  expanded :  his  mind  followed  the  course  through 
which  "on  revient  toujours  a  ses  premiers  amours/'  and 
Mrs.  Piper  echoed  his  stronger  longings  for  Q. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  spiritist  and  teleologist  would 
perhaps  put  the  matter  something  in  this  way: — Life  is  a 
discipline.  Hodgson's  early  loss  of  Q  was  part  of  the  dis- 
cipline. Q  did  not  want  to  interfere  with  it,  perhaps  could 
not,  before  it  had  done  a  certain  measure  of  its  "perfect 
work,"  but  in  the  fullness  of  time,  she  appeared. 

If  I  had  to  form  a  tentative  opinion,  it  would  be  in  the 
shape  of  a  guess  that  both  these  theories  may  be  right — a 
guess  which  will  have  more  meaning  if  you  finish  this  book, 
than  it  can  have  now. 

Whatever  may  be  the  interpretation,  one  friend  to  whom 
Hodgson  showed  the  reports  of  the  sittings,  and  for  whose 
judicial-mindedness  I  can  vouch,  says  that  they  were  "  most 
impressive  and  often  very  touching,"  and  believes  that  it  was 
really  they,  more  than  the  G.  P.  sittings,  which  converted 
Hodgson  to  spiritism  and,  in  the  words  of  another  friend, 
already  quoted,  "  made  him  a  saint." 

If,  then,  in  this  pragmatic  age,  the  sittings  with  Q  are 
to  be  known  by  their  fruits,  their  genuineness  has  heavy 
claims. 

Plainly  relations  had  ostensibly  been  resumed  before  the 
following.  It  is  all  that  I  find  in  the  notes  of  that  period 
now  in  possession  of  Professor  Newbold.  The  fragment, 
however,  throws  many  suggestive  lights  on  the  whole  experi- 
ence, even  upon  Hodgson's  view  of  Imperator,  and  makes 
at  least  one  of  that  personage's  scoffing  critics  look  upon 
him  for  the  moment  with  respect. 


596   Farther  Extracts  from  Newbold's  Notes  [Bk.  II,  Ft  IV 

Mch.  6,  1897. 

UQ.  writes.  Refers  to  violets,  little  white  lilies,  pinks,  and 
asks  after  large  red  flowers.  Very  red  in  color  with  little  stripes 
through  it.  Assents  to  tulip.  R.  H.  put  in  his  room  four  days 
before,  violets,  pansies  and  one  tulip,  intending  them  for  Q. 
The  tulip  wilted  very  abruptly. 

"  Imperator ...  I  send  thy  friend  to  thee.  May  the  blessing 
of  God  be  upon  her  dear  head,  and  God  in  His  mercy  protect 
thee,  my  friend,  and  keep  thee  in  holiness.  tl.SJX" 


CHAPTEE  XXXVII 
PROFESSOR  HYSLOFS  REPORT 

PR.  XVI  consists  entirely  of  reports  and  comments  by 
Professor  J.  H.  Hyslop,  late  of  Columbia  University  and 
moving  spirit  of  the  second  American  S.  P.  R.  The  reports 
are  mainly  of  sittings  with  Mrs.  Piper  and  experiments  bear- 
ing thereupon.  These  accounts,  like  those  of  almost  all  medi- 
Timistic  communications,  contain  little  or  no  verifiable  matter 
that  cannot  be  explained  by  telepathy  from  some  incarnate 
intelligence.  But  this  consideration  loses  much  of  its  weight 
in  face  of  the  standard  question  how  a  communication  could 
be  verifiable  if  the  knowledge  were  not  in  some  incarnate 
mind. 

The  communications  almost  all  relate  to  the  ordinary  ex- 
periences of  Professor  Hyslop's  immediate  ancestral  family — 
persons  of  more  than  average  intelligence  and  character,  living 
in  an  average  Western  rural  community.  This  material  is  of 
course  not  in  itself  as  interesting  as  that  proceeding  from 
London,  Boston,  and  the  universities  in  both  the  Cambridges. 
The  rural  material,  however,  is  far  from  lacking  in  evidential 
and  dramatic  features,  though  for  obvious  reasons  I  do  not 
draw  from  it  as  freely  as  from  the  other.  In  reading  it, 
probably  because  of  admiration  of  an  occasional  dramatic 
glow  over  the  gray  background,  I  for  the  first  time  realized 
that  if  the  medium  gets  her  material  from  the  sitter's  mind, 
it  seems  at  least  as  probable  that  he  works  it  into  dramatic 
shape  as  that  she  does;  and  the  alternative  is  not  merely 
between  the  spiritistic  hypothesis  and  the  hypothesis  of  the 
medium  having  dramatic  power  more  exact  and  comprehensive 
(not  more  poetic,  of  course)  than  that  of  Shakespere  or  Sopho- 
cles, but  also  the  harder  hypothesis  (the  difficulty  increasing 
geometrically  with  each  successful  sitter)  that,  for  all  we 
know,  each  sitter  is  as  much  entitled  to  be  credited  with  this 
power  as  the  medium.  The  improbability  of  this  may  well  be 

597 


598  Professor  Hyslop's  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt  IY 

weighed  against  the  improbability  of  the  spiritistic  hypothesis. 

Professor  Hyslop  has  studied  his  sittings  with  an  interest 
rivaling  that  of  any  other  investigator,  but  the  result,  while 
of  value  to  the  student,  is  not  stimulating  reading  for  the 
average  man.  I  shall  extract  a  few  specimens,  however,  for 
special  reasons. 

The  first  thing  out  of  the  ordinary  which  I  come  across, 
is  a  weakness  in  the  stilted  phraseology  of  Eector  (Pr.  XVI, 
311)  :  "May  God  be  with  thee  both."  Then  Prudens  takes 
a  turn  at  the  same  thing  (p.  312) :  "  Good  morrow,  friends  of 
earth.  We  greet  thee  again."  Then  Eector  turns  up  again 
with  similar  grammar  (p.  324)  :  "  Good  morrow,  friends  of 
earth.  We  hail  thee  once  more."  And  again  (p.  335)  : 
"  Good  morrow,  friends,  we  meet  thee  once  more."  All  about 
as  superfluous  as  ungrammatical ! 

I  don't  know  whether  to  take  this  bad  grammar  as  evi- 
dential or  not.  It  is  about  on  a  level  with  their  sentimental 
bombast,  and  tends  to  make  them  appear  consistent  individu- 
alities. So  far  as  I  know,  there's  nothing  unusual  the  matter 
with  Mrs.  Piper's  grammar,  and  certainly  nothing  with  Pro- 
fessor Hyslop's. 

But  on  this  subject,  G.  P.  and  Professor  Hyslop  make 
some  interesting  remarks  (Pr.  XVI,  441)  :  S.  =  Professor 
Hyslop.  H.  or  R.  H.  =  Hodgson. 

"  [G.  P.  communicating]  :  '  Mr.  Hyslop  and  his  wife  is  here, 
are  here  [S.  points  at  the  is  and  are]  and ...  if  I  fail  grammat- 
ically, H.,  it  is  owing  to  the  machine.  Hear.  Cannot  always 
make  it  work  just  right.'  (R.  H. :  Yes,  I  understand,  George.) 
[This  consciousness  of  a  grammatical  mistake  and  the  correc- 
tion of  it  are  no  less  astounding  when  you  are  able  to  watch  the 
conditions  under  which  they  occur,  than  the  readiness  with 
which  the  change  of  personality  takes  place.  Besides,  they  fit  in 
so  nicely  with  what  we  know  of  G.  P.'s  intellectual  tastes  and 
habits.— J.H.H.]  [See  Pr.XIII,363.]  " 

This  passage  referred  to,  in  Pr.  XIII,  is  as  follows : 

"  G.  P.  [After  a  reference  to  Mr.  Marte.]  '  Cosmical  weather 
interests  both  he  and  I — me — him — I  know  it  all.  Don't  you  see 
I  correct  these.  Well,  I  am  not  less  intelligent  now.  But  there 
are  many  difficulties.  I  am  far  clearer  on  all  points  than  I  was 
shut  up  in  the  prisoned  body.  (Prisoned?  prisoning  or  im- 
prisoning you  ought  to  say.)  No,  I  don't  mean  to  get  it  that 


Ch.  XXXVII]    Frequent  Dazing  of  Controls  599 

way  you  spoke — perhaps  I  have  spelled  it  wrong.  Prisoned 
body.  Prisoning.  See  here,  H.  "  Don't  view  me  with  a  critic's 
eye,  but  pass  my  imperfections  by."  Of  course  I  know  all  that 
as  well  as  anybody  on  your  sphere.  (Of  course.)  Well  I  think 
so.  I  tell  you,  old  fellow,  it  don't  do  to  pick  all  these  little 
errors  too  much  when  they  amount  to  nothing  in  one  way.  You 
have  light  enough  and  brain  enough  I  know  to  understand  my 
explanations  of  being  shut  up  in  this  body  [the  medium's  now, 
his  own  alluded  to  above.  H.H.]  dreaming  as  it  were  and  trying 
to  help  on  Science.' " 

Other  controls  have  attributed  bad  spelling  to  the  illiteracy 
of  their  mediums  as  well  as  to  the  general  difficulties  of  the 
situation. 

The  first  of  the  foregoing  remarks  by  G.  P.  came  during 
an  interlude  when  Professor  Hyslop's  father  had  been  speak- 
ing. (It  is  most  convenient  in  the  accounts  of  sittings  to 
name  the  alleged  dramatis  persona  as  if  they  were  what  they 
purport  to  be.  No  opinion  on  that  point  need  be  inferred. 
Probably  I've  said  this  before,  and  probably  shall  say  it  again.) 
The  following  had  occurred  (Pr.  XVI,  440-1)  : 

"(S.:  Who  is  speaking  now?)  R.  [Rector.  H.H.]  :  'It  is 
father  who  is  speaking  now.  (Yes.)  But  he  seems  a  little 
dazed.'  G.  P.:  'I  am  coming,  H.,  to  help  out.  (R.  H. : 
Thanks,  George,  we  shall  be  glad.)  How  are  you?  (R.  H. : 
First  rate.  We  shall  be  glad  to  have  your  help.)  All  well. . . .' 
[This  interruption  by  G.  P.  during  a  few  moments'  respite 
for  my  father  is  an  interesting  feature  of  the  case. — J.H.H.]  " 

I  copy  this  bit  partly  because  it  illustrates  a  frequent  oc- 
currence— the  apparent  dazing  of  the  control — perhaps  by 
the  novelty  of  the  situation,  perhaps  by  the  clamor  of  other 
controls  around  him,  perhaps  by  fatigue  of  either  control  or 
medium,  perhaps  by  slackening  of  the  trance — and  the  inter- 
vention of  somebody,  most  frequently  G.  P.  or  Rector,  to 
help  things  along.  Professor  Hyslop's  remarks  on  the  subject 
I  think  worth  careful  attention  (Pr.  XVI,  211f.) : 

"  In  these  sudden  interruptions  G.  P.  appears  as  an  interme- 
diary to  interpret,  correct,  or  transmit  something  which  Rector, 
the  amanuensis  does  not  '  hear,'  and  by  signing  his  own  initials 
to  the  message,  or  statement,  he  reveals  just  the  evidence  of 
another  personality  and  independent  intelligence  which  would 
be  so  natural  on  the  spiritistic  theory,  but  not  to  be  expected 
a  priori  either  of  the  telepathic  hypothesis  or  of  its  combination 
with  secondary  personality 


600  Professor  Hyslop's  Eeport    [Bk.  II,  Pt  IV 

"The  statement  of  my  father  on  May  29th  (Pr.XVI,419),  'I 
am  speaking  to  some  other  man  who  is  speaking  for  me/  might 
possibly  imply  the  presence  of  G.  P.,  though  possibly  Rector  was 
intended.  But  on  May  30th  my  cousin,  Robert  McClellan,  gives 
G.  P.'s  full  name — George  Pelham  (pseudonym) — and  remarks 
that  he  is  assisting.  A  moment  later,  right  in  the  midst  of  a 
communication  from  my  cousin,  whose  messages  were  badly  con- 
fused, G.  P.  suddenly  interjects  the  statement:  'Look  out,  H., 
I  am  here.  G.  P.  -|~  [Imperator]  sent  me  some  moments  ago.' 
(Pr.XVI,428.)  Then  again  a  few  minutes  later,  while  Rector 
was  struggling  to  get  the  name  McClellan  clear  and  could  only 
get  Me  Allen,  G.  P.  shouts  out,  so  to  speak,  as  an  intermediary 
to  aid  Rector,  '  Sounds  like  McLellen.  G.  P.,'  and  my  cousin 
acknowledges  its  correctness  by  saying:  'Yes,  I  am  he.' 

"  At  the  close  of  my  cousin's  communications  G.  P.'s  presence 
and  influence  are  evident  in  the  sentence  declaring :  '  The  ma- 
chine is  not  right,  H.,'  which  Dr.  Hodgson  took  to  refer  to  the 
need  of  a  fresh  pencil,  and  he  accordingly  gave  one.  This  occurs 
in  the  interval  between  the  departure  of  my  cousin  and  the 
arrival  of  my  father  (p.  429)  [i.e.,  in  Pr.XVI.  H.H.]. 

"  In  the  same  sitting  (p.  434)  the  name  of  my  half-sister  was 
given.  There  was  considerable  trouble  with  it  on  Rector's  part, 
as  he  stumbled  about  between  the  false  attempts  '  Abbie,'  '  Ad- 
die,'  and  '  Nabbie,'  until  G.  P.  suddenly  interrupted  him  with  the 
statement :  '  Yes,  but  let  me  hear  it,  and  I  will  get  it.  G.  P.* 
He  then  gave  the  name  '  Hattie '  and  followed  it  with  '  Harriet,' 
when  I  acknowledged  that  it  was  nearly  correct,  alluding  to  the 
1  Hattie  '  in  particular,  but  without  saying  so.  I  asked  that  it  be 
spelled  out.  Then  immediately  was  written :  '  Hettie.  G.  P.,' 
spelling  it  in  capitals,  and  I  expressed  satisfaction  with  it,  recog- 
nizing that  this  was  the  proper  nickname  for  Henrietta,  which 
she  was  always  called.  But  as  if  still  uncertain  about  it,  the 
fact  being  that  father  never  called  her  '  Hettie,'  G.  P.  continued : 
*Ett[?]  Hettie.  G.  P.' 

"  Again  in  the  sitting  of  June  6th,  before  my  father  appeared, 
and  just  as  Rector  had  explained  how  we  should  ask  certain 
questions  when  my  father  should  announce  himself,  G.  P.  sud- 
denly interjected  a  greeting  and  some  questions  directed  to  Dr. 

Hodgson,  the  colloquy  being  as  follows : — '  H. how  are  you  ? 

I  have  just  been  called  upon  to  lend  a  helping  hand.  You  see  I 
am  wholly  isolated  from  you.  (R.  H. :  Good,  George,  were  you 
here  last  time?)  For  a  few  moments.  I  helped  a  man  named 
Charles,  but  I  did  not  get  a  chance  to  say  How  de  do,  H.  ?  (R. 
H. :  All  right,  George.)  I  am  going  after  the  elderly  gentle- 
man. Look  out  for  me.  (R.  H. :  We  will.)  Got  those  theories 
all  straightened  out  yet,  H?  (R.  H. :  Pretty  fairly.)  I  am  going. 
Auf  wiedersehen.  G.  P.'  (p.  468)  My  father  then  appeared  with 
the  appropriate  message,  '  I  am  coming,  James.' 

"Another  sudden   interruption,  signed  by  G.  P.'s   initials, 


Ch.  XXXVII]    G.  P.  Helping  Hyslop  Controls  601 

occurred  on  June  7th.  It  was  in  the  midst  of  the  confusion 
incident  to  the  attempt  at  giving  the  name  of  my  stepmother. 
My  father,  evidently  appreciating  his  difficulty  in  the  situation, 
remarked :  '  I  feel  the  necessity  of  speaking  as  clearly  as  possible, 
James,  and  I  will  do  my  best  to  do  so.'  G.  P.  probably  fearing 
that  my  father  was  not  yet  clear  enough  to  do  what  he  wished, 
suddenly  cautioned  him  with  the  advice :  '  Wait  a  bit,'  and  as 
Dr.  Hodgson  interpreted  the  word  '  wait '  as  '  said,'  G.  P.  re-  \ 
peated  the  phrase,  signing  it:  'Wait  a  bit.  G.  P.'  Father  then 
proceeded  with  his  explanation  of  the  mistake  about  my  step- 
mother, all  the  parties  on  the  '  other  side '  assuming,  apparently, 
that  he  was  clear  enough  for  the  task. 

"  In  all  these  interpositions  of  G.  P.  the  marks  of  an  indepen- 
ent  intelligence  are  very  indicative.  There  is  in  them  nothing 
like  the  character  of  either  the  inexperienced  communicator 
or  Eector,  the  amanuensis,  nor  is  there  any  definite  resemblance 
to  either  secondary  personality  in  general  or  to  intercommunica- 
tion between  two  personalities  in  the  same  subject.  They  are 
the  interference  of  a  spectator  and  helper  on  his  own  responsi- 
bility, when  he  sees  that  he  can  effect  a  clear  message  that  is 
misunderstood  or  not  clearly  obtained  by  Rector.  Such  dramatic 
play,  involving  the  personal  equation  of  the  real  individual  G.  P. 
as  known  when  living,  and  here  kept  distinct  from  that  of 
Rector  and  others,  is  a  characteristic  not  easily  explicable  on  any 
but  the  spiritistic  theory,  especially  when  it  includes  the  trans- 
mission of  evidential  data." 


CHAPTEE  XXXVIII 
MR.  PIDDINGTON'S  REPORT  ON  MRS.  THOMPSON 

ABOUT  the  time  we  have  been  considering,  in  1899  and 
1900,  there  took  place  at  Hampstead,  London,  England,  with 
Mrs.  Edmond  Thompson,  a  series  of  sittings  which  are  re- 
ported in  Pr.  XVII  and  XVIII.  Mrs.  Thompson  has  not 
given  nearly  as  many  sittings  as  Mrs.  Piper,  or  any  profes- 
sional ones;  consequently  the  range  of  her  phenomena  is  not 
as  wide,  but  I  don't  know  a  more  entertaining  piece  of  lit- 
erature from  which  to  get  an  idea  of  mediumistic  phenomena 
(or  from  which  to  get  a  couple  of  hours'  good  reading)  than 
Mr.  Piddington's  admirable  account  of  Mrs.  Thompson's  sit- 
tings. Part  XLVII  of  Pr.  XVIII  is  well  worth  the  inter^ 
ested  reader's  procuring.  It  was  preceded  in  Pr.  XVII  by 
reports  of  the  same  medium  from  Myers,  Dr.  van  Eeden, 
Messrs.  J.  0.  Wilson  and  Piddington,  Dr.  Hodgson,  Miss 
Alice  Johnson  and  Mrs.  Verrall,  which,  though  excellent,  are 
much  briefer  and  less  studied  than  the  one  in  Pr.  XVIII: 
so  our  limited  space  can  probably  be  best  utilized  by  quoting 
mainly  from  Pr.  XVIII. 

At  the  period  reported,  Mrs.  Thompson,  daughter  of  an 
architect  and  wife  of  an  importer,  was  a  little  over  thirty 
years  old,  in  fine  health,  a  good  mother  and  housekeeper, 
fond  of  bicycling  and  the  theater  and  the  other  amusements 
of  young  English  ladies  in  comfortable  circumstances,  and 
without  any  external  characteristic  indicative  of  her  extraor- 
dinary powers — powers  which  Myers  declares  (Pr.  XVII,  69), 
and  few  if  any  students  will  differ  with  him,  constitute  "a 
trust  placed  in  the  hands  of  individuals  selected  by  some 
law  as  yet  unknown."  Yet  this  vigorous,  sprightly,  common- 
sense  young  woman  was  in  the  habit  of  seeing  writing  on 
walls,  pictures  in  crystal  balls,  "  spirit-like  "  visions ;  of  writ- 
ing automatically,  and,  without  the  slightest  provocation,  tum- 

602 


Ch.  XXXVIII]    Mrs.  Thompson's  Physical  Phenomena     603 

bling  into  trance  and  delivering  heteromatic  messages  by  pen 
or  voice. 
Of  the  crystal  ball  visions  Myers  says  (Pr.  XVII,  70) : 

"Sentences  sometimes  appear;  which,  oddly  enough,  look  to 
Mrs.  Thompson  (who  alone  has  seen  them)  just  like  scraps  of 
coarse  printing; — as  though  a  piece  of  newspaper  were  held 
beneath  the  ball." 

This  is  exactly  my  own  experience  in  dreams.  The  sen- 
tences are  not  incoherent,  but  have  had  no  significance  that 
I  remember. 

So  far  as  I  can  recall,  the  Pr.  S.  P.  E.  contain  no  report  of 
physical  phenomena  from  Mrs.  Thompson.  But  Podmore,  in 
The  Newer  Spiritualism,  published  in  1910,  says  that  this  was 
due  to  the  objections  of  Mr.  Thompson,  who,  in  1910,  was  no 
longer  living,  and  whose  death  was  regarded  as  removing  the 
ban  of  secrecy.  Podmore  thereupon  gives  accounts  of  mani- 
festations by  her  of  virtually  the  whole  range  of  physical  phe- 
nomena, including  even  materialization  and  elongation,  but  not 
levitation.  He  uses  reports  prepared  by  Mr.  F.  W.  Thurston, 
M.A.,  at  whose  house,  in  1897  and  1898,  most  of  the  sittings 
occurred  (New.  Spir.,  186f.) : 

"In  a  dim  light  in  which  we  could  just  distinguish  one 
another,"  Mr.  Thurston's  dead  sister  Clare  distributed  flowers, 
touched  the  persons  present,  and  used  "the  direct  voice" 
which 

"  as  her  power  increased . . .  gained  strength  and  timbre  . . . 
loud  but  sweet,  and  with  a  mannerism  of  utterance  noticeably 
distinct  from  that  of  Mrs.  T. . . .  All  this  while  Mrs.  T.  was  in 
full  consciousness,  but  she  kept  exclaiming  that  she  felt  '  all 
hollow';  and  another  thing  she  noticed  was  that  whenever 
'  Clare's '  fingers  touched  anyone  she  distinctly  felt  a  pricking 
sensation  in  her  body,  very  similar  to  her  experiences  when  she 
had  been  placed  once  on  an  insulating  stool  and  charged  with 
electricity,  and  persons  had  touched  her  to  make  sparks  come 

from  her 

"  While  my  sister  '  Clare '  was  still  touching  my  hand  and 
talking  to  me,  '  Nelly's '  voice  was  suddenly  heard  by  her 
father's  side,  saying,  '  I  am  here ' ;  and  both  father  and  mother 
were  in  raptures  to  feel  the  touch  of  the  vanished  hand  of  their 
little  daughter  caressing  them." 

This  is  corroborated  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  A.,  who  were  present. 
Touching  materialization  and  even  elongation,  though  I 


604   Piddington's  Report  on  Mrs.  Thompson  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IY 

have  suggested  considerations  in  Chapter  X  that  may  account 
for  them,  my  judgment  is  in  suspense,  and  the  attribution  of 
them — in  the  dark  as  usual — to  Mrs.  Thompson,  detracts  just 
a  shade  from  my  confidence  in  her  heteromatic  speech  and 
writing ;  but  even  Podmore  does  not  let  her  physical  phenom- 
ena prevent  his  saying  of  the  other  phenomena  (New.  Spir., 
p.  198)  : 

"  There  seems,  indeed,  little  doubt  that  Mrs.  Thompson  must 
be  placed  in  the  same  category  as  Mrs.  Piper,  and  that  the  ex- 
planation that  will  eventually  be  found  to  fit  the  facts  in  the 
one  case  must  be  applied  to  the  other  also." 

Hodgson  had  six  sittings  with  Mrs.  Thompson  in  1900. 
There  was  nothing  in  them  as  interesting  as  I  shall  report 
from  other  sitters,  and  he  thought  that  there  was  fraud.  This 
was  during  his  skeptical  period,  before  the  G.  P.  manifesta- 
tions converted  him  to  spiritism. 

Touching  these  sittings,  Mr.  Piddington  remarks  (Pr. 
XVIII,  105-6)  : 

"  I  am  not  at  all  surprised  that  Mrs.  Thompson's  trance  should 
not  have  impressed  Dr.  Hodgson  as  genuine.  So  easy,  and  sud- 
den, so  entirely  unannounced,  as  a  rule,  is  the  transition  from 
the  medium's  waking  to  her  entranced  state,  and,  except  on  rare 
occasions,  so  free  from  any,  at  least  apparent,  physical  discom- 
fort, and  so  alert  her  attention  and  behavior  during  the  trance 
that  to  one  accustomed  to  Mrs.  Piper's  trance  Mrs.  Thompson 
might  well  appear  to  be  shamming.1 

"But  not  only  to  one  accustomed  to  the  deep  and  dramatic 
form  of  trance  displayed  by  Mrs.  Piper  might  Mrs.  Thompson's 
trance  be  unconvincing,  but  also  to  one  who,  having  had  but 
little  experience  of  mediumistic  trances,  was  biassed  by  precon- 
ceived notions  of  what  a  trance  ought  to  be. 

"  [NoTE. — x  In  his  recent  work,  Hypnotism :  Us  History,  Prac- 
tice and  Theory,  Dr.  J.  Milne  Bramwell  maintains  that,  in  some 
cases  where  only  the  very  slightest  hypnosis  has  been  induced, 
and  even  where  no  certain  trace  of  it  has  been  detected,  sugges- 
tion yields  therapeutic  results  as  striking  as  in  the  case  of 
patients  who  have  been  deeply  hypnotized.  Thus  the  view  that 
the  exercise  of  supernormal  faculty  need  not  be  accompanied  by 
either  profound  or  even  slight  trance  [Foster  apparently  had 
none  at  all.  H.H.]  would  fall  into  line  with  Dr.  Bramwell's  ob- 
servations if,  with  Myers,  we  attribute  both  response  to  curative 
suggestions,  and  supernormal  faculties  generally  to  the  activities 
of  the  subliminal  consciousness.]  " 


Ch.  XXXVIII]    Authorities  on  Mrs.  Thompson  605 

Other  authorities  have  expressed  themselves  as  follows — 
first,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  (Pr.  XVII,  62) : 

"It  has  been  the  wish  of  Mrs.  Thompson  herself  that  every- 
thing, whether  favorable  or  unfavorable,  should  be  impartially 

published Anything  in  the  nature  of  suppression,  either  of 

suspicious  circumstances  or  of  hostile  criticism,  would  be  re- 
sented by  her." 

Myers  prefaced  his  accounts  of  her  sittings  (Pr.  XVII, 
69): 

"For  what  follows,  therefore,  I  claim  entire  genuineness.  I 
believe  that  there  has  been  no  attempt  whatever  to  exaggerate 
any  incident,  but  an  honest  desire  on  the  part  of  both  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Thompson  to  utilize  for  the  benefit  of  Science  a  gift  which 
they  fully  recognize  as  independent  of  personal  merit." 

Also  Dr.  van  Eeden,  in  his  report  on  Mrs.  Thompson, 
said  (Pr.  XVII,  78)  that  certain  facts  "excluded  all  fraud 
or  coincidence,"  and  (p.  80) : 

"  To  explain  all  these  morbid  phenomena  as  the  work  of  the 
unconscious  or  subliminal  mind,  or  of  a  secondary  personality, 
often  seems  forced  and  insufficient.  Moreover,  considering  the 
matter  philosophically,  are  the  terms :  '  unconscious,'  '  sublimi- 
nal,' '  secondary  personality,'  clearer  and  more  scientific  than  the 
terms  demon,  spirit,  or  ghost  ?  Is  it  not  often  a  simple  question 
of  terms?  What  difference  is  there  between  a  secondary  or 
tertiary  personality  and  a  possessing  demon  ? " 

Mr.  Piddington  (Pr.  XVII,  136) : 

"  I  fail  to  see  how  any  hypothesis  involving  conscious  fraud 
on  Mrs.  Thompson's  part  can  provide  a  solution." 

Miss  Alice  Johnson  (Pr.  XVII,  163) : 

"  I  had,  and  have  still  a  distinct  impression  of  her  entire  sin- 
cerity in  the  matter." 

Mrs.  Verrall  (Pr.  XVII,  218)  : 

"  That  Mrs.  Thompson  is  possessed  of  knowledge  not  normally 
obtained  I  regard  as  established  beyond  a  doubt;  that  the 
hypothesis  of  fraud,  conscious  or  unconscious  on  her  part,  fails 
to  explain  the  phenomena,  seems  to  be  equally  certain;  that  to 
more  causes  than  one  is  to  be  attributed  the  success  which  I  have 
recorded  seems  to  me  likely.  There  is,  I  believe,  some  evidence 
to  indicate  that  telepathy  between  the  sitter  and  the  trance 
personality  is  one  of  these  contributory  causes.  But  that  tele- 


606   Piddington's  Report  on  Mrs.  Thompson  [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

pathy  from  the  living,  even  in  an  extended  sense  of  the  term, 
does  not  furnish  a  complete  explanation  of  the  occurrences 
observed  by  me,  is ...  my  present  belief." 

Mrs.  Thompson's  principal  "control"  is,  ostensibly,  her 
daughter  Nelly,  who  died  as  a  baby,  and  has  been  growing 
up  into  as  amusing  a  little  minx  as  there  is  on  record — as 
amusing  in  her  way  as  Phinuit  is  in  his.  I  simply  believe 
that  it  is  not  in  human  capacity  to  turn  out  either  of  them 
day  after  day  off-hand.  Nelly  has  a  pal,  Elsie,  a  friend  of 
the  family,  who  died  when  six  years  old. 

An  appearance  was  frequently  put  in,  too,  by  the  alleged 
spirit  of  Mrs.  Cartwright,  the  proprietor  (not  teacher)  of 
a  school  attended  in  girlhood  by  Mrs.  Thompson.  She  was 
a  remarkable  contrast  to  Nelly,  and  almost  equally  amusing 
in  her  own  way,  as  the  following  passage  from  Mr.  Pidding- 
ton  illustrates  (Pr.  XVIII,  132) : 

"The  following  effort  of  a  modern  lady  novelist  might  have 
been  written  by  Mrs.  Cartwright,  and  would  certainly  have  met 
with  her  approbation : — '  The  burnt  child  is  proverbially  a  dis- 
senter from  the  form  of  religion  established  by  Zoroaster.' " 

The  following  extract  from  Mr.  Piddington's  report  ap- 
pears to  indicate  either  remarkable  dramatic  power  on  the 
part  of  the  medium,  or  distinct  personalities  communicating 
(Pr.  XVIII,  173) : 

"  Mrs.  Cartwright  and  Nelly  spoke  in  turns,  and  a  most  amus- 
ing scene  ensued,  Mrs.  Cartwright  casting  reflections  on  Nelly's 
way  of  doing  her  work,  and  Nelly  bobbing  in  and  out  to  mimic 
Mrs.  Cartwright's  pompous  and  platitudinous  manner  and  dic- 
tion, and  to  complain  of  her  dictatorial  airs.  Nelly,  as  usual, 
wound  up  the  sitting,  and  put  in  a  parting  shot : — '  Mrs.  Cart- 
wright thinks  I'm  illiterate.'  '  She  always  thought  life  not 
worth  living,  if  you  weren't  obeyed.'  '  Mrs.  Cartwright  says  I'm 
to  come  before  I  talk  "  insipid  nonsense "  (mimicking  Mrs. 
Cartwright's  voice  and  accent).  Her  compliments  come  thick 
and  fast.' 

"  Mrs.  Thompson  remarked  on  waking : — '  I've  been  back  to  my 
old  school  at  Wenlock,  where  Mrs.  Cartwright  was.  I  saw  Mrs. 
Cartwright.' " 

Isn't  this  exactly  like  a  dream?     Compare  Mrs.  Piper's 
seeing  G.  P.  so  that  she  picks  out  his  photograph. 
Mr.  Piddington  farther  comments  (Pr.  XVIII,  132)  : 


Ch.  XXXVIII]    Individuality  of  Controls  607 

"  Two  grammatical  slips  made  by  that  otherwise  immaculate 
stylist,  Mrs.  Cartwright . . .  occurred  at  the  sitting  which  had 
been  enlivened  by  the  tiff,  and  at  which  Nelly,  who  was  very 
sore,  complained  that  Mrs.  Cartwright  had  criticised  her  cul- 
ture : — '  Mrs.  Cartwright  says  I'm  illiterate.'  Nelly's  grammar, 
it  is  true,  is  not  above  reproach,  but,  in  spite  of  her  choice  diction, 
no  more  is  Mrs.  Cartwright's.  I  had  handed  to  the  medium  a 
cap,  and  Nelly  failed  to  give  more  than  one,  though  that  a  very 
essential,  fact  about  its  owner,  so  Mrs.  Cartwright  undertook  to 
come  to  the  rescue,  and  expressed  her  intention  as  follows: — 
'  With  regard  to  that  cap,  Sir,  I'm  not  prepared  with  any  in- 
formation about  it;  but  I  will  [sic']  be  able  to  fathom  it  out  for 
you.' " 

And  later,  speaking  of  Archbishop  Benson,  Mrs.  Cart- 
wright says  (Pr.  XVIII,  133)  : 

" '  It  is  only  us  [sic]  higher  spirits  who  do  not  have  to  make 
use  of  material  objects  in  order  to  obtain  information.' " 

Mr.  Piddington  continues : 

"  Though  Nelly's  speech  is  slangy  and  incorrect — in  keeping 
with  her  character,  for  she  is  half  Puck,  half  gamin,  though 
entirely  lovable — not  only  is  Mrs.  Thompson's  language  vastly 
more  refined  and  accurate  than  Nelly's,  but  the  '  Mr.  D.'  control 
[another  of  the  many  cases  where  a  woman's  secondary  person- 
ality(  ?)  is  a  man !  H.H.],  who  has  occasionally  spoken  with  great 
fluency  and  ease  in  my  presence,  talks  as  good  English  as  one 
can  wish  to  hear.  The  occasional  mistakes  of  Mrs.  Cartwright 
are  not  at  all  difficult  to  reconcile  with  the  theory  that  she  is  the 
spirit  of  a  middle-class  woman  of  imperfect  education  (it  should 
be  borne  in  mind  that  she  was  not  a  teacher,  but  the  proprietress 
of  a  school),  who  piqued  herself  upon  her  superior  command  of 
language;  but  it  is  not  quite  so  easy  to  explain  them  if  she  is  a 
secondary  personality ;  for  if  '  Mr.  D.'  can  be  made  to  speak  cor- 
rectly, why  not  Mrs.  Cartwright  also  ? 

"  There  had  been  a  break  in  the  trance Shortly  before  the 

medium  was  re-entranced  she  said  she  thought  Mrs.  Cartwright 
might  be  coming  to  control.  Later  on  Mrs.  Cartwright  did  con- 
trol; but  she  was  preceded  by  the  control  whom  I  call  here 
'  Mr.  D.'  This  control  spoke  only  a  dozen  words,  and  disap- 
peared. Nelly  then  came  on  the  scene  for  a  moment  to  say  that 
Mr.  D.  had  made  a  mistake,  and  added  that  Mrs.  Cartwright 
would  explain  better  than  herself  what  had  happened.  Mrs. 
Cartwright's  explanation  was  that  she  could  not  explain  Mr. 
D.'s  sudden  and  confused  intrusion ;  and  then  the  matter  dropped. 
But  the  episode  was  an  interesting  one  to  witness,  for  the  change 
of  controls  was  effected  very  rapidly  and  with  complete  ease, 


608   Piddington's  Report  on  Mrs.  Thompson  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV] 

only  a  moment's  silence  between  the  going  away  of  one  and  the 
arrival  of  the  next;  the  medium  displayed  no  symptoms  of 
physical  discomfort,  and  the  alterations  of  personality,  occurring 
as  they  did  within  the  space  of  a  minute  or  two,  brought  out 
into  strong  relief  the  distinctive  features  of  these  the  three  prin- 
cipal controls.  Mr.  D.'s  intrusion  was  most  lifelike  and  natural, 
his  behavior  and  slight  discomposure  were  just  like  those  of  a 
person  who  has  entered  a  room  by  mistake  and  found  a  stranger 
in  it." 

Compare  sundry  changes  of  control  in  the  Piper  trances — 
sometimes  just  as  easy,  sometimes  difficult.  This  easy  ap- 
pearance of  controls  is  at  variance  with  much  that  has  been 
said  about  the  extreme  difficulty  of  communication.  As  far 
as  we  have  got,  pretty  much  everything  seems  to  contradict 
pretty  much  everything  else.  But  there  may  be  reconciliation 
when  we  know  more. 

On  December  4,  1899,  Nelly  said  to  Dr.  van  Eeden  (Pr. 
XVII,  99f.)  : 

" '  If  you  say,  "  Now,  Nelly,"  I'll  come  if  I  can.'  Van  E. : 
'  Will  you  come  in  my  dreams  ? '  Nelly :  '  But  you've  got  cur- 
tains round  your  bed.  [This  is  a  telopsis  in  Holland  or  tele- 
pathy from  van  E.'s  mind.  H.H.]  I  don't  like  them.  They  are 
old-fashioned  now.'  [Bed  curtains  are  becoming  rare  in  Holland. 
Van  E.'s  sleeping-room  being  at  the  same  time  his  study,  he  has 
a  drapery  hanging  before  his  bed.]  Van  E. :  'If  you  saw  better 
you  would  see  why  I  have  curtains.'  Nelly :  '  Because  it's  got  a 
thing  to  hide  it.  Because  you  don't  want  all  the  people  to  see. 
You  are  funny.'  Van  E. : '  What's  the  matter  ? '  Nelly :  '  I  don't 
know.'  Van  E.:  'I  put  the  curtain  up  at  night.'  Nelly:  'I 
don't  know  if  I  am  in  the  right  house.  It's  got  a  shiny  floor. 
There's  a  cupboard  with  little  drawers.'  [There  is  a  cupboard 
with  little  drawers  in  van  E.'s  house  and  a  floor  with  mattings.] 
. . .  Nelly  (to  Mrs.  Verrall)  :  '  Perhaps  I'll  talk  secrets  when  you 
go  away.  I  shan't  call  you  doctor  (to  van  E.),  though  the  old 
gentleman  does.  I  can't  oblige  you  and  call  you  doctor.  You 
have  not  enough  bottles,  you  don't  smell  enough  of  disinfectants. 
[Van  E.  does  not  practise  medicine  much  now.]  . . .  Your  real 
name  is  foreign  savant.  I'll  forgive  you  for  saying  Spain  to 
mother.'  [On  walking  away  from  the  house  with  Mrs.  Thomp- 
son after  his  first  sitting,  when  his  nationality  had  not  yet  been 
discovered,  van  E.  had  talked  to  her  about  Spain,  not  without 
some  intention  of  seeing  if  Nelly  would  follow  up  a  wrong 
hint.]  " 

Dr.  van  Eeden  soon  thereafter  returned  to  Holland. 
Here  is  an  extract  from 


Ch.  XXXVIII]     Nelly  in  Van  Eeden's  Dreams  609 

Sitting  of  January  5th,  1900.    (Pr.XVII,H2-3.) 

"Present:  Mrs.  ,  Mrs.  F.,  Hon.  E.  Feilding,  and  J.  G. 

Piddington. 

"  Nelly  (to  J.  G.  P.)  :  '  Tell  Dr.  van  Eeden  he  kept  calling  me 

last  night  (i.e.,  Jan.  4-5).  He  was  inside  those  curtains I 

went  to  him  and  I  think  he  knows  it.  He  told  me  so,  and  he  is 
waiting  to  hear  if  you  send  my  message.  He  was  asleep.  "  Now, 
Nelly,  you  come  to  me  and  remember,"  he  cried  out.  His  wife 

was  stout He  was  in  bed  alone,  not  with  his  wife,  he  was 

by  himself.  He  had  had  a  hard  day's  work,  yet  was  sufficiently 
awake  to  call  me.' 

"  J.  G.  P.  sent  a  transcript  of  the  above  to  Dr.  van  Eeden  and 
received  the  following  reply: 

" '  WALDEN,  BUSSUM,  Jan.  10, 1900. 

" '  Dear  Mr.  Piddington, 

"  '  In  the  diary  of  my  dreams  I  find  on  January  3rd  that  I  had 
what  I  call  a  "  clear  dream  "  with  full  consciousness  on  the  night 
of  [Jan.]  2-3,  between  Tuesday  and  Wednesday.  In  those 
dreams  I  have  power  to  call  people  and  see  them  in  my  dream. 
I  had  arranged  with  Nelly  that  I  should  call  her  in  the  first 
dream  of  this  sort,  and  I  did  so  on  the  said  night.  She  appeared 
to  me  in  the  form  of  a  little  girl,  rather  plump  and  healthy-look- 
ing, with  loose,  light-colored  hair.  [Note  that  at  sitting  on 
Nov.  29,  1899,  Nelly  had  described  her  hair  as  black  and  curly, 
in  van  E.'s  hearing. — J.G.P.]  She  did  not  talk  to  me,  but  looked 
rather  awkward  or  embarrassed,  giving  me  to  understand  that 
she  could  not  yet  speak  to  me;  she  had  not  yet  learned  Dutch. 
This  was  the  second  dream  of  the  sort  after  my  stay  in  England. 
The  first  occurred  on  Dec.  11.  In  this  dream  I  also  tried  to  call 
Nelly,  but  it  was  no  success.  Some  grown-up  girl  appeared,  who 
spoke  Dutch,  and  as  my  consciousness  was  not  quite  clear,  I  had 
forgotten  that  she  was  to  be  English. 

"  '  The  particulars  are  true.  I  slept  alone,  in  the  bed  with  the 
curtain,  or  rather  drapery,  hanging  before  it.  I  was  extremely 
tired,  and  slept  deeply  and  soundly,  which  is  always  a  condition 
for  that  sort  of  dream. 

" '  The  mistake  about  the  date  does  not  seem  very  important, 
as  it  was  probably  the  first  sitting  you  had  after  Jan.  3.  [It 
was  the  first  sitting  since  Dec.  18,  1899.— J.G.P.]  . . .  Tell  Nelly 
next  time  she  was  right  about  my  calling,  and  ask  her  to  tell 
you  again  when  she  has  been  aware  of  it.  But  let  her  not  make 
guesses  or  shots.  I  shall  try  to  give  her  some  communications. 

"  '  Yours  very  truly, 

" '  F.  VAN  EEDEN.' 

"  Nelly  made  no  reference  to  Dr.  van  Eeden  at  sittings  held  on 
the  10th,  12th,  and  16th  of  January." 


610   Piddington's  Report  on  Mrs.  Thompson  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

Sitting  of  January  18th,  1900.    (Pr.XVII,113.) 
"  Present :  Mr.  J.  O.  Wilson  (pseudonym)  and  J.  G.  Pidding- 
ton. 

"  At  end  of  sitting  J.  G.  P.  asks  Nelly :  '  Have  you  been  to  see 
Dr.  van  Eeden  ? '  Nelly :  '  No.  I  haven't.  This  is  a  mixture. 
Dr.  van  Eeden  has  summoned  me  twice,  and  Elsie,' — (here  J.  G. 
P.  interrupted  Nelly  to  ask  who  '  Elsie '  was,  not  having  heard 
her  mentioned  before)  '  a  little  girl  that  used  to  talk  before  I 
came — Elsie  Line  came  to  me  and  said  "  Old  Whiskers  in  the 
bed  is  calling  you."'  J.  G.  P.:  'When  was  that?'  Nelly:  'It 
was  before  the  sitting  with ' — (Nelly  then  proceeded  to  describe 
the  personal  appearance  of  a  lady  and  gentleman,  both  unknown 
by  name  to  Mrs.  Thompson,  who  had  attended  the  sitting  of 
Jan.  16).  'Both  times  was  before  that'  (i.e.,  before  Jan.  16). 
'  I  said :  "  Bother  Whiskers !  you  go  instead  of  me  " — and  very 
likely  she  did  go.  I  hope  he  didn't  think  she  was  me.  You  want 
my  description.  I  haven't  red  hair.  It's  as  light  as  mother's — 
not  red — more  look  of  brightness  like  mother's — and  then  I've 
nicer  eyes  than  mother . . .  dark,  wide  open  eyes.  I'm  fat,  and 
look  as  if  I  was  seven ;  I  am  older.' " 

Unless  the  brat  got  knowledge  and  a  vocabulary  in  the 
other  world  a  great  deal  faster  than  they  can  be  acquired  in 
this,  she  was  not  genuine. 

But  on  November  29,  1899,  she  had  said  (Pr.  XVII,  90) : 

" '  I'm  going  to  materialize  one  day  for  father  to  show  him  the 
color  of  my  hair — black  curly  hair,  not  light  like  mothers.'. . . 
J.  G.  P.  several  months  later  pointed  out  to  Nelly  the  incon- 
sistency of  these  two  descriptions,  and  Nelly  explained  that  the 
description  given  on  January  18th,  1900,  should  apply  to  '  Elsie.' 1 

"  [NOTE. — x  After  reading  the  proofs  of  this  record,  Mrs. 
Thompson  . . .  told  me  that  the  personal  description  ascribed  by 
Nelly  to  Elsie  is  not  in  accordance  with  the  facts;  for  Elsie. . . 
had  colorless  lightish  brown  hair  cut  short  and  straight  across 
her  forehead.  Elsie  died  at  about  six  years  of  age.  Nelly,  who 
died  when  only  four  months  old,  had  very  dark  brown  curly  hair, 
most  unlike  her  mother's.]"  [Such  hair  often  grows  light 
later.  H.H.] 

Here  is  an  account,  badly  mutilated  in  necessary  condensa- 
tion, of  a  suicide,  which  might  all  be  telepathic  if  one  could 
account  for  its  dramatic  quality  on  that  basis: 

Sitting  of  June  2nd,  1900.    (Pr.XVII,104f.) 

" Van  E. :  '  You  have  not  told  me  the  principal  thing 

about  this  man'  (parcel).    Nelly :  '  The  principal  thing  is  his  sud- 
den death  [R.]  [=  Right.  H.H.] .    I  can  tell  you  better  when  she 


Ch.  XXXVIII]      Van  Eeden's  Friend  the  Suicide         611 

(Lady  X.)  is  not  there.  It  frightens  me.  Everybody  was  fright- 
ened, seeming  to  say  "  O  dear !  good  gracious !  "  . . .  This  gentle- 
man could  shoot.  He  was  rather  an  out-of-doors  man.  What  a 
funny  hat  he  used  to  wear.  Round  with  a  cord  around.  He  had 
a  velvet  jacket.  You  have  a  velvet  jacket  too,  but  not  real 
velvet,  and  like  trousers  [R.].  But  that  gentleman  had  real 
velvet  jacket.  [References  to  dress.  D.]  [=  Doubtful.  H.H.]  I 
can't  see  any  blood  about  this  gentleman,  but  a  horrible  sore 
place:  somebody  wiped  it  all  up.  It  looks  black  [the  bullet 
wound  probably].  I  am  happy  because  that  man  is  happy  now. 
He  was  in  a  state  of  muddle.  And  when  he  realized  what  he  had 
done,  he  said  it  is  better  to  make  amends  and  be  happy.'  Van 
E. :  '  How  did  he  make  amends  ? '  Nelly :  '  When  any  people 
want  to  kill  themselves  he  goes  behind  them  and  stops  their 
hands,  saying,  "just  wait."  He  stops  their  hands  from  cutting 
their  throats.  He  says,  "  Don't  do  that :  you  will  wake  up  and 
find  yourself  in  another  world  haunted  with  the  facts,  and  that's 
a  greater  punishment."  He's  got  such  a  horror  that  anybody 
would  do  the  same  thing,  and  he  asks  them  to  stop,  and  it  makes 
him  so  happy.  [He  cut  his  own  throat,  but  recovered;  and 
afterwards  shot  himself.]  (To  van  E.)  You  don't  seem  to  have 
any  whiskers.  I  don't  see  your  head  properly.  Someone  covers 
up  your  head.  He  covers  up  your  head  to  show  how  his  own 
head  was  covered  up.  O  dear,  isn't  it  funny?  You  must  not 
cut  off  your  head  when  you  die.  [The  suicide's  head  was  cov- 
ered up  when  he  was  found  dead.]  . . .  How  do  you  pronounce 
Hendrik  ? '  Van  E. :  '  Very  good,  it  is  Hendrik.'  Nelly  says 
good-by  to  everybody,  and  to  Lady  X.,  '  I  like  you.' . . .  [Note  by 
van  E. — I  did  not  quite  remember  the  name  of  the  suicide,  and 
thought  it  might  be  Hendrik.  A  few  days  later  I  dreamt  about 
another  friend  of  mine  called  '  Sam,'  and  I  called  out,  '  Sam ! 
Sam ! '  in  my  dream.  I  remembered  then  that  the  name  of  the 
dead  man  was  also  Sam,  or  Samuel.]  " 

At  the  next  sitting  Nelly  says  (Pr.  XVII,  108) : 

" '  This  matter  (the  suicide  of  the  cap-man)  was  all  in  the 
newspapers.  But  he  is  sorry,  because  there  was  a  mis-statement 
of  facts  in  one  newspaper.  This  grieves  him,  because  it  was 
already  bad  enough  for  his  friends.  [The  facts  of  the  case  were 
misrepresented  in  the  newspapers  to  the  detriment  of  the  de- 
ceased man's  friends,  but  van  E.  could  not  find  out  what  partic- 
ular newspaper  was  more  to  blame  than  the  rest.]  He  wants  to 
know  why  his  life  is  to  be  talked  over  in  a  foreign  country.' " 

Sitting  of  June  Wit  1900.    (Pr.XVII,108f.) 

"At  Mrs.  Thompson's  house.    Present:  Mrs.  Thompson,  Dr. 
van  Eeden. 
"  Since  the  last  sitting  on  June  5th  Mrs.  Thompson  has  had  a 


612   Piddington's  Report  on  Mrs.  Thompson  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

peculiar  cough  quite  unusual  to  her.  It  was  like  that  of  the 
suicide.  [Mr.  Myers  writes :  '  Mrs.  T.  independently  told  me 
that  this  huskiness  began  when  she  first  saw  van  Eeden  on  this 
visit  of  his  to  England,  and  continued  throughout  his  stay,  and 
went  off  half-an-hour  after  his  departure.  She  had  no  cold.']  " 

For  forty  years  I  have  remembered  a  similar  cough  that 
bothered  me  for  some  days  when  a  sensitive  was  visiting  me, 
and  the  sensitive  was  bothered  by  it  too.  I  did  not  think 
of  the  coincidence  until  I  read  this.  I  cannot  attach  any 
meaning  to  it  now. 

"  Nelly :  '  That  gentleman  that  made  my  mother  have  a  sore 
throat,  he  came  and  tried  to  make  mother  write.  He  wanted  to 
say  something  about  the  name  of  that  place.'  Mrs.  Thompson 
showed  van  E.  what  she  had  written  on  a  sheet  of  paper  after 
the  last  sitting  on  June  5th,  in  a  state  of  trance.  It  was  Notten 
Velp.  [First  name  unknown  to  van  E.]  [Then  where  did  Mrs. 
Thompson  get  it?  H.H.]  Velp  is  a  well-known  village  in  Hol- 
land. Van  E.  does  not  know  if  his  friend  had  ever  been 
there 

"  (Mrs.  Thompson's  hand  tries  to  write  with  pencil  on  paper. 
Writes :  '  Wedstruden  '  again.  Long  silence.  Mrs.  Thompson 
seems  very  restless,  feeling  her  throat  with  her  hands.)  Nelly: 
'  He  wants  you  to  speak  Hollands,  Hollands/  (Van  E.  speaks  a 
few  words  in  Dutch,  asking  if  his  dead  friend  heard  and  under- 
stood. After  this  comes  a  very  expressive  pantomime,  during 
which  Mrs.  Thompson  takes  van  E.'s  hands  firmly  as  if  to  thank 
him  very  heartily,  making  different  gestures.)  Nelly :  '  He 
understood.  I  was  not  talking  through  mother  then. . . .  He  could 
not  talk  better.  All  the  time  he  is  nearly  in  possession  of 
mother.  That's  what  makes  my  mother's  throat  so.  (Rummag- 
ing in  the  parcel)  [of  the  suicide's  clothes.  H.H.]  I  am  trying 
to  get  a  fresh  place  in  the  parcel.  What's  "  Vrouw  Poss  "... 
"  Poss." '  Van  E. :  '  Vrouw  Post— Ik  versta  je.'  [This  was  the 
exact  pronunciation — the  final  '  t '  being  but  slightly  sounded  in 
Dutch — of  a  name  very  familiar  to  van  E.  Vrouw  (=  Mrs.) 
Post  is  a  poor  workwoman  who  used  to  come  to  his  house  every 
day.]  (When  van  E.  repeated  the  words  and  said  '  ik  versta  je ' 
(I  understand)  Mrs.  Thompson  laughed  very  excitedly  and  made 
emphatic  gestures  of  pleasure  and  satisfaction,  patting  his  head 
and  shoulders,  just  as  his  friend  would  have  done.)  Nelly:  '  He 
is  so  glad  you  recognized  him.  He  is  not  so  emotional  usually. 
What  is  Wuitsbergen  . . .  Criuswergen  ? '  [This  is  very  nearly 
the  right  pronunciation  of  the  word  Cruysbergen,  the  old  name 
of  van  E.'s  place,  Walden.  Van  E.  writes :  '  It  is  remarkable 
that  it  was  not  at  all  like  the  pronunciation  of  the  word  as  if 
read  by  an  English  person,  but  as  if  heard.  This  name  is  still 


Ch.  XXXVIII]    Van  Eeden's  Friend  the  Suicide  613 

in  use  among  us,   and  my  dead  friend  used   it   always '] 

Van  E. :  '  Ih  weet  wat  je  zeggen  wil,  zeg  het  nog  eens.'  ('  I 
know  what  you  mean,  say  it  again.')  (Nelly  tries  again  and 
says  '  Hans.'  She  then  says  that  she  is  going  away  for  two 
minutes.  Mrs.  Thompson  awakening  says  '  I  smell  some  sort 
of  anesthetic  stuff  like  chloroform.  I  can  taste  it  in  my  mouth. 
I  was  dreaming  about  being  chloroformed,  and  your  trying  to 
wake  me  up.')  ['  This  is  very  remarkable,  the  taste  being  prob- 
ably that  of  iodoform,  which  was  used  in  healing  the  wound  in 
the  throat  of  my  dead  friend.  Mrs.  Thompson,  in  reply  to  in- 
quiry, said  that  she  did  not  know  the  smell  of  iodoform.' — Note 
by  van  E.] 

"4.45.  Trance  came  on  again  suddenly  in  the  middle  of  con- 
versation. Nelly :  '  That  gentleman  was  pleased  and  delighted.' 
Van  E. :  '  Why  does  he  not  give  his  name  ? '  Nelly :  '  It  is  like 
Sum,  Thum,  or  like  Sjam.  Not  quite  this.  Please,  do  you  pro- 
nounce it  properly.'  Van  E. :  '  Yes,  indeed,  it  is  Sam.'  Nelly : 
'  That  is  it.  He  says  it  sounded  like  Sjam  through  his  bad 
throat. . . .'  Mrs.  Thompson  appeared  now  to  be  completely 
under  the  control  of  van  E.'s  dead  friend,  and  began  to  speak 
in  a  low  hoarse  voice.)  Sam :  '  Head  muddled  mine  was.  When 
I  was  regrettable — thing.  I  must  know  where  friends.  Success 
for  me.'  Van  E. :  '  Zeg  den  naam  van  je  vriend.'  ('  Say  your 
friend's  name.')  (Different  gestures  to  show  that  the  words 
must  be  drawn  out  of  the  mouth  and  pressed  into  the  head, 
gestures  expressing  great  difficulty.)  Sam :  '  Max  . . .  Frederik 
make  progress.  People  shall  read  and  read  and  re-read  and 
your  plans  shall  be  carried  out  after  you.  [This  points  clearly 
to  van  E.'s  social  plans.]  Truth.  Do  not  (...?...)  away  the 
truth.  I  shall  talk  in  our  own  beloved  Dutch.  In  the  sleep  helps 
to  clear  out  that  woman's  head.'  Van  E. :  '  Welke  vrouw  ? ' 
('  Which  woman  ? ')  Sam :  '  This  woman.  (Mrs.  T.  presses  her 
own  breast.)  I  shall  speak  more  clear.  (Hoarse  voice.)  Why 
try  and  make  me  live?  Not  come  back.'  (Van  E.  asks,  always 
in  Dutch,  after  the  friend,  who  imitated  his  suicide.  Violent 
gestures  of  disquiet  and  horror.  Mrs.  T.'s  hand  takes  the  cap 
and  shows  it.)  Sam :  '  When  I  was  in  England  greatest  disap- 
pointment. I  went  to  England  just  before.  [He  never  was  in 
England.]  Did  you  think  dreadful  of  me  ? ' . . .  Nelly :  '  Did  you 
understand  what  was  "  Wedstruden  "  ? '  Van  E. :  '  O  yes.  But 
what  is  it  in  English?'  Nelly:  'I  cannot  find  out.'  (It  must 
be  understood  that  van  E.  spoke  the  few  Dutch  questions  with- 
out translating  and  got  answers  immediately.)  " 

Dr.  van  Eeden  says  (Pr.  XVII,  81f.) : 

" '  During  the  first  series  of  experiments,  in  November  and 
December,  1899,  I  felt  a  very  strong  conviction  that  the  person 
. . .  was  living  as  a  spirit  and  was  in  communication  with  me 


614   Piddington's  Report  on  Mrs.  Thompson  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

through  Mrs.  Thompson. . . .  But  when  I  came  home  [to  Holland. 
H.H.],  I  found  on  further  inquiry  inexplicable  faults  and  fail- 
ures. If  I  had  really  spoken  to  the  dead  man,  he  would  never 
have  made  these  mistakes.  And  the  remarkable  feature  of  it 
was  that  all  these  mistakes  were  in  those  very  particulars  which 
I  had  not  known  myself  and  was  unable  to  correct  on  the  spot. 
...  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  I  had  dealt  only  with  Mrs. 
Thompson,  who . . .  had  acted  the  ghost,  though  in  perfect  good 
faith 

" '  But  on  my  second  visit,  in  June,  1900,  when  I  took  with 
me  the  piece  of  clothing  of  the  young  man  who  had  committed 
suicide,  my  first  impression  came  back,  and  with  greater  force. 
I  was  well  on  my  guard,  and  if  I  gave  hints,  it  was  not  uncon- 
sciously, but  on  purpose;  and... the  plainest  hints  were  not 
taken,  but  the  truth  came  out  in  the  most  curious  and  unex- 
pected ways 

"  '  The  following  described  very  exactly  both  his  character  and 
his  attempt  at  suicide.  "  He  would  not  show  me  any  blood  on 
his  neck,  because  he  was  afraid  I  should  be  frightened."  This  is 
quite  like  my  dead  young  friend.  He  was  very  gentle  and  al- 
ways tried  to  hide  his  mutilated  throat  in  order  not  to  horrify 
children  or  sensitive  people. 

" '  Up  to  the  sitting  of  June  7th  all  the  information  came 
through  Nelly,  Mrs.  Thompson's  so-called  spirit-control.  But  on 
that  date  the  deceased  tried,  as  he  had  promised,  to  take  the 
control  himself,  as  the  technical  term  goes.  The  evidence  then 
became  very  striking.  During  a  few  minutes — though  a  few 
minutes  only — I  felt  absolutely  as  if  I  were  speaking  to  my 
friend  himself.  I  spoke  Dutch  and  got  immediate  and  correct 
answers.  The  expression  of  satisfaction  and  gratification  in  face 
and  gesture,  when  we  seemed  to  understand  each  other,  was  too 
true  and  vivid  to  be  acted.  Quite  unexpected  Dutch  words  were 
pronounced  [Mrs.  Thompson,  I  believe,  did  not  understand 
Dutch.  H.H.],  details  were  given  which  were  far  from  my  mind, 
some  of  which,  as  that  about  my  friend's  uncle  in  a  former  sit- 
ting, I  had  never  known,  and  found  to  be  true  only  on  inquiry 
afterwards 

" '  And  here,  I  think,  I  may  make  a  definite  and  clear  state- 
ment of  my  present  opinion,  which  has  been  wavering  between 
the  two  sides  for  a  long  time Every  phenomenon  or  occur- 
rence of  a  very  extraordinary  character  is  only  believed  after 
repeated  observation. ...  At  this  present  moment  it  is  about 
eight  months  since  I  had  my  last  sitting  with  Mrs.  Thompson 
in  Paris,  and  yet,  when  I  read  the  notes  again,  it  is  impossible 
for  me  to  abstain  from  the  conviction  that  I  have  really  been  a 
witness,  were  it  only  for  a  few  minutes,  of  the  voluntary  mani- 
festation of  a  deceased  person.'  " 


Ch.  XXXVIII]    Sundry  Suggestive  Incidents  615 

Sitting  of  February  1st,  1900.    (Pr.XVII,126-7.) 

"  Mrs.  Thompson,  Medium.    Present :  J.  G.  Piddington,  alone. 

" Nelly :  '  When  in  the  Express  Dairy  I  nearly  controlled 

mother  then.  Express  Dairy  near  the  Marble  Arch.'  J.  G.  P.: 
'  Why  did  you  ? '  Nelly :  '  Because  I  wanted  to  be  preparing  her 
to  tell  you  about  all  these  things.'  [After  trance  Mrs.  T.  told 
J.  G.  P.  that  when  in  a  tea-shop  at  the  end  of  Park  Lane  earlier 
in  the  day  she  had  been  nearly  entranced." 

In  one  of  Mrs.  Verrall's  sittings  came  this  strange  and 
significant  circumstance  (Pr.  XVII,  201)  : 

"  Nelly  said  that  a  piece  of  hair  which  I  gave  her  when  she 
was  in  my  house  was  the  hair  of  a  very  delicate  baby,  so  delicate 
that  it  '  makes  mother's  hand  cold ' ;  Mrs.  Thompson's  hand, 
which  she  gave  to  me,  had  suddenly  become  very  cold.1 

"  [NOTE. — l  On  another  occasion,  when  speaking  of  a  person 
who  had  died  suddenly  from  an  accident,  in  full  vigor  of  health, 
Nelly  drew  my  attention  to  the  heat  of  Mrs.  Thompson's  hand, 
due,  according  to  her,  to  the  extreme  vitality  of  the  person  in 
question." 

Cf.  Mrs.  Piper  and  Hodgson,  bottom  of  p.  412. 

Sitting  of  July  Wh,  1900.     (Pr.XVIII,U5f.) 

"  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Percival's  first  sitting.    Mr.  Myers  recording. 

"  [P-]  [This  series  in  Pr.XVIII,  it  will  be  remembered,  is 
edited  by  Mr.  Piddington.  H.H.]  ...  A  book  that  had  belonged 
to  W.  Stainton  Moses  was  handed  to  the  medium,  but  nothing 
came  of  this  except  that  the  medium's  hand  wrote  '  William 
Stainton,'  and  that  subsequently  Mrs.  Cartwright  said  that  she 
saw  little  chance  of  getting  at  Moses,  who  was  in  a  different 
part  of  the  spiritual  world.  She  also  denied  all  knowledge  of 
the  Imperator  group. 

"  Mr.  Myers  asked  what  had  first  interested  Mrs.  Cartwright 
in  the  subject  of  spirit  communication,  and  she  replied  as  fol- 
lows : — '  I  abhorred  the  subject  of  Spiritualism  when  on  earth. 
Yet  I  could  not  help  thinking  about  it,  and  I  made  up  my  mind 
that  the  first  thing  I  would  do  on  the  other  side  was  to  see 
whether  there  was  any  truth  in  it,  and  then,  if  possible,  come 
back  and  tell  people  it  was  all  nonsense.'  Mrs.  Cartwright's 
meaning  is  clear  enough,  but  her  manner  of  expressing  it  sug- 
gests that  she  must  hare  had  more  than  a  drop  of  Irish  blood 
in  her  veins." 

Later  Mr.  Piddington  says  (Pr.  XVIII,  149) : 

"  Nelly  intimates  that  skepticism  is  not  confined  to  this  side 
of  the  veil,  and  that  in  her  efforts  to  forward  the  cause  of 


616   Piddington's  Report  on  Mrs.  Thompson  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

psychical  research  she  has  to  incur  the  invidious  charge  of  being 
a  Paul  Pry.  If  nay  memory  serves  me  well,  Phinuit  likewise 
has  complained  of  the  odium  into  which  his  inquisitiveness  into 
the  affairs  of  strangers  has  brought  him." 

Mr.  Piddington  also  remarks  (Pr.  XVIII,  166-7) : 

"I  believe  that  Nelly  has  sometimes  spoken  of  things  which 

the  normal  Mrs.  Thompson  would  not  have  mentioned  to  me 

Some  of  the  more  marked  instances  of  Nelly's  artless  epanche- 
ment  occurred  in  the  earlier  sittings  when  Mrs.  Thompson  and 
I  were  comparative  strangers  to  one  another.  I  do  not  mean  to 
suggest  that  Nelly  was  very  much  of  an  enfant  terrible,  but  she 
told  some  tales  out  of  school  for  which  a  child  less  privileged 
and  one  not  removed  from  the  sphere  of  material  punishment 
would,  I  fancy,  have  had  to  suffer. . . .  But  about  Mrs.  Benson's 
relations  and  my  own  she  has  expressed  opinions  the  reverse  of 
complimentary  and  in  a  style  quite  foreign  to  Mrs.  Thompson's 
courteous  nature." 

Sitting  of  January  11th,  1901.  (Pr.XVIII,l76-7.) 
"  [P.]  ...  A  control  which  purported  to  be  Professor  Sidg- 
wick  appeared  for  the  first  time,  and  then  the  control  whom  I 
call  Mr.  D.  spoke  and  wrote  for  about  half  an  hour,  and  brought 
the  sitting  to  a  close  without  Nelly  reappearing.  When  Mrs. 
Thompson  awoke  she  said : — '  I'm  sure  that  was  Mr.  D.'  I 
asked  why.  '  Because  I  feel  so  different,'  she  replied.  I  then 
asked  if  she  remembered  anything,  to  which  came  the  answer : — 
'  No.  Oh !  yes,  I  do.  I  remember  hearing  Professor  Sidgwick 
stuttering,  and  I  thought  to  myself  he  might  have  dropped  the 
stutter  when  he  got  to  heaven.  He  was  dressed  in  just  ordinary 
clothes.' "  [All  this  is  just  like  ordinary  dreaming.  H.H.] 

Mr.  Piddington  points  out  (Pr.  XVIII,  180)  that 

"  while  Dr.  Hodgson  believes  as  the  result  of  his  long,  acute  and 
searching  investigation  that  Mrs.  Piper  '  is  entirely  ignorant  of 
what  occurs  during  trance  '  [she  certainly  remembers  during  the 
"  waking  stage."  How  about  recognizing  G.  P.'s  portrait  ?  H.H.], 
the  same  cannot  be  said  of  Mrs.  Thompson.  Again  '  Phinuit  is, 
or  pretends  to  be  equally  unaware  of  the  knowledge  possessed  by 
Mrs.  Piper,  and  of  the  incidents  which  happen  to  her  in  her 
ordinary  life.'  Nelly  neither  is,  nor  pretends  to  be  similarly 
ignorant." 

Mrs.  Thompson's  Account  of  a  Teloptic  Vision. 
(Pr.XVni,183-4.) 

"May  24th,  1900. 

"'On  Monday,  May  7th,  1900,  about  7.30  in  the  evening,  I 
happened  to  be  sitting  quite  alone  in  the  dining-room,  and 
thinking  of  the  possibility  of  my  "  subliminal "  communicating 


Ch.  XXXVIII]    Mrs.  Thompson's  Teloptic  Vision          617 

with  that  of  another  person — no  one  in  particular.  I  was  not 
for  one  moment  unconscious.  All  at  once  I  felt  someone  was 
standing  near,  and  quickly  opened  my  eyes,  and  was  very  sur- 
prised to  see — clairvoyantly,  of  course — Mr.  J.  G.  Piddington. 
I  was  very  keen  to  try  the  experiment:  so  at  once  spoke  to  him 
aloud.  He  looked  so  natural  and  life-like  I  did  not  feel  in  the 
least  alarmed. 

" '  I  commenced : — "  Please  tell  me  of  something  I  may  after- 
wards verify  to  prove  I  am  really  speaking  to  you."  J.  G.  P. : 
"  I  have  had  a  beastly  row  with "  [naming  a  specified  per- 
son]. R.  T.:  "  What  about? "  (No  answer  to  this.)  J.  G.  P.: 
"  He  says  he  did  not  intend  to  annoy  me,  but  I  said  he  had  been 
very  successful  in  doing  so,  whether  he  intended  to  or  not." 
After  saying  this  he  disappeared,  and  I  began  to  wonder  if  there 
was  any  truth  in  what  I  had  heard  from — what  appeared  to  me 
to  be — Mr.  Piddington.  I  did  not  like  to  write  and  to  ask  him 
if  it  was  so.  On  May  24th,  I  had  an  opportunity  of  telling  him, 
and  was  very  surprised  to  hear  it  was  the  truth.  I  also  told 
him  I  had  guessed  at  the  subject  of  the  "beastly  row."  My 
conjecture  was  quite  accurate. 

"'(Signed)    ROSALIE  THOMPSON. 

' '  P.  8. — People  often  ask  me  how  I  talk  with  Nelly :  just  as 
I  talked  with  Mr.  Piddington  on  May  7th.  I  seem  to  see  and 
feel  what  they  are  saying.  The  lips  appear  to  move,  but  they 
make  no  audible  sound.  Yet  unless  7  speak  aloud  they  do  not 
seem  to  understand  me.  I  have  tried  Nelly  when  she  appears  to 
me  by  asking  mental  questions,  but  she  does  not  understand 
unless  I  speak  aloud  and  very  clearly.  R.  T.' " 

Mr.  Piddington  thus  supplements  Mrs.  Thompson's  state- 
ment (Pr.  XVIII,  184) : 

"Writing  to  Mr.  Myers  on  May  30th,  1900,  I  expressed  my- 
self as  follows: — 

" '  I  entirely  indorse  Mrs.  Thompson's  account.  I  made  her 
describe  the  incident  in  full  before  saying  whether  the  story 
corresponded  in  any  way  with  actual  facts. 

" '  One  point  I  think  Mrs.  Thompson  has  omitted  from  her 
account.  I  feel  nearly  certain  that  she  described  herself  as  hav- 
ing been  aware  that  the  quarrel  was  conducted  by  correspond- 
ence, as  was  the  case,  and  not  viva  voce.  The  correspondence 
took  place  between  April  28th  and  May  1st.  Mrs.  Thompson's 

experience  was  on  May  7th I  think  it  highly  improbable  that 

Mrs.  Thompson  could  have  had  any  knowledge  of  the  "  beastly 
row  "  in  an  ordinary  way,  and  of  the  fact  that  my  correspondent 
professed  to  have  had  no  desire  to  annoy  me,  and  of  my  observa- 
tion thereon,  impossible.  I  do  not  remember,  and  have  no  means 
of  recalling,  what  I  was  doing  about  7.30  P.M.  on  May  7th — 
probably  dressing  for  dinner.' 


618   Piddington's  Report  on  Mrs.  Thompson  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV, 

"  It  was  this  experience  of  Mrs.  Thompson's  which  compelled 
my  belief  in  her  supernormal  powers.  At  the  time  I  saw  no  way 
of  getting  round  it  and  I  see  no  way  now.  But  to  my  great 
regret  I  do  not  feel  myself  at  liberty  to  disclose  all  the  circum- 
stances. The  case  must  accordingly  lose  much  of  its  evidential 
value,  and  I  therefore  cannot  hope  that  it  will  produce  on  others 
the  same  conviction  that  it  has  on  myself." 

Prof.  Moutonnier  and  Mrs.  Thompson 
(Pr.XVin.194-200)  : 

"  [P.]  Professor  C.  Moutonnier,  formerly  Professor  at  the 
Ecole  des  hautes  Etudes  Commercials  a  Paris,  sent  to  Mr. 
Myers  the  following  account  of  how  he  made  the  acquaintance 
of  Mrs.  Thompson,  and  also  a  record  of  a  sitting  which  he  had 
with  her 

" '  On  February  the  10th,  I  received  from  Prof.  C.  Richet  an 
invitation  to  attend  some  psychical  experiments  which  were  to 
take  place  at  his  chateau  at  Carqueiranne,  together  with  Profes- 
sors Myers  and  James I  was  then  on  a  visit  at  my  daughter's 

at  Monte  Carlo,  with  my  family,  quite  unaware  of  Mrs.  Thomp- 
son being  at  the  same  place,  as  I  did  not  know  her,  either  by 
name  or  sight. 

" '  On  the  1st  of  March,  between  10  and  11  A.M.,  I  was  sitting 
on  a  bench  with  my  wife,  in  one  of  the  most  retired  spots  of  the 
gardens. ...  I  saw  coming  up  to  us  three  persons,  a  gentleman 
accompanied  by  a  lady  and  a  little  girl,  eleven  years  old.  The 
lady  addressed  us  in  English  (without  knowing  our  nationality) 
as  old  friends,  and  in  such  a  familiar  way  as  only  those  already 
acquainted  with  the  subject  could  take  any  interest  in  her  con- 
versation. She  told  us,  ex  abrupto,  and  without  being  ques- 
tioned, that  she  came  from  a  chateau  at  Carqueiranne  belonging 
to  Professor  Richet,  where  she  had  been  staying  for  some  time 
with  the  Professors  Myers  and  James . . .  that  she  had  been 
guided  to  me  by  her  little  spirit-girl,  notwithstanding  that  her 
husband  insisted  on  going  by  another  alley;  and  that,  as  soon  as 
she  perceived  us,  she  saw  written  before  her  eyes  the  word 
"  Carqueiranne."  . . .  Great  was  her  surprise  when  I  told  her  we 
were  intimate  friends  of  Professor  Richet,  and  greater  still  my 
joy  on  learning  that  she  was  one  of  the  two  mediums  I  was  to 
meet  at  Carqueiranne 

" '  Our  next  meeting  took  place  on  the  13th  of  March,  at  the 
same  spot  and  the  same  hour. . . .  After  about  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  chatting  on  different  topics,  Mrs.  Thompson — without  los- 
ing consciousness — was  all  of  a  sudden  taken  hold  of  by  her 
spirit-girl,  who  spoke  through  her  in  the  following  manner  and 
terms,  written  down  word  by  word  as  uttered  from  the  lips  of 
the  medium: — 

" '  1.  "  The  lady  who  is  standing  back  of  you  says  that  you 
have  a  ring  of  hers,  and  you  should  give  it  to  me. 


Ch.  XXXVIII]    Mrs.  Thompson  and  Prof.  Moutonnier     619 

" '  2.  "  She  mentions  that  Long  Henry  wants  to  send  a  mes- 
sage to  the  one  who  was  a  little  girl. 

"'3.  "The  lady  had  white  hands,  long  fingers,  and  finger- 
nails like  nut-shells. 

« i  ±  ti  YOU  have  something  that  belongs  to  Harry  in  your 
pocket. 

" '  5.  "  Long  Henry  was  very  weak,  and  suffered  from  the 
stomach,  which  caused  him  to  stoop  a  little. 

"  '  6.  "  It  seems  to  me  that  he  died  in  a  foreign  country ;  you 
remember  when  you  last  saw  him,  he  wore  a  kind  of  a  black 
coat  and  a  black  tie. 

"  '  7.  "  The  lady  died  and  she  left  a  little  girl,  and  she  is  going 
to  have  the  ring,  but  in  a  long  time  to  come. 

" '  8.  "  There  is  someone  related  to  Long  Henry,  and  he  asks 
if  you  are  still  teaching,  as  you  could  not  very  well  take  care  of 
the  babe  and  do  two  things  together. 

"'9.  "When  the  lady  died  she  left  a  little  carved  box,  you 
know,  to  put  trinkets  into  it;  you  don't  know  but  the  painting 
lady  knows  all  about  it. 

" '  10.  "  Harry  says  that  you  have  a  stud  that  belongs  to  him. 
It  is  not  to  make  you  feel  bad ;  but  he  is  very  funny,  you  know ; 
he  is  rather  reserved,  dignified,  and  wants  to  be  somebody. 

" '  11.  "  He  was  very  fond  of  stretching  out  his  legs,  when  he 
was  seated;  he  liked  also  sticks  and  had  some  very  funny 
ones 

"  '  13.  "  It  seems  to  me  that  he  died  very  unfortunately,  when 
his  prospects  were  at  the  highest.  It  was  as  if  it  were  a  pre- 
mature death. 

" '  14.  "  He  knew  you  to*  be  very  kind,  but  never  thought  you 
would  have  done  so  much  for  his  babe,  as  it  was  a  very  weak 
and  miserable  one 

" '  17.  "  You  have  some  hair  in  your  pocket ;  I  wish  you  gave 
it  to  me. 

" '  18.  "  There  is  a  Marie  connected  with  it.  The  hair  was 
first  brown  and  then  chestnut  color. 

" '  19.  "  The  lad y  died ;  she  was  quite  well  and  was  not  to 
die 

« <  21.  "  There  is  also  a  George  connected  with  it.  He  is  in  a 
foreign  country  and  alive 

" '  23.  "  It  seems  as  if  '  the  hair '  had  been  in  the  hands  of 
another  medium ;  there  is  an  influence  of  a  stout  lady 

" '  25.  "  Harry  says  that  the  chestnut  hair  was  that  of  his 
darling  wife." 

"Explanatory  Notes. 

" '  1.  The  ring  mentioned  here  was  my  daughter's 

" '  2.  Long  Henry  was  an  intimate  friend  of  ours He  was 

rery  tall  and  liked  my  granddaughter — then  a  little  child — very 
much. 


620   Piddington's  Report  on  Mrs.  Thompson  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV. 

"'3.  My  daughter's  hands  were  of  a  beautiful  shape,  white, 
long  and  tapering. 

" '  4.  I  had  in  the  left  inside  pocket  of  my  coat  a  little  picture 
of  Harry — my  son-in-law 

" '  5 Henry's  health  had  always  been  very  poor,  and  his 

tallness  caused  him  to  stoop  a  little 

" '  6.  When  we  last  saw  him  in  Paris — at  luncheon — he  wore  a 
black  cut-away  coat  and  a  black  necktie. 

" '  7.  Both  my  daughter  and  her  husband  died  leaving  a  girl 
— then  six  years  old,  their  only  child. 

" '  8.  The  person  alluded  to  by  Long  Henry  is  myself.  I  was 
then  a  professor  at  the  Ecole  des  hautes  Etudes  Commerciales  at 
Paris. 

" '  9.  After  my  daughter's  death  we  found  many  little  boxes, 
where  she  kept  her  jewels.  I,  of  course,  was  ignorant  of  the 
fact,  but  my  other  daughter,  her  sister  (mentioned  by  the  me- 
dium as  being  the  painting  lady,  and  who  is  in  reality  an  artist 
painter)  very  likely  knew  all  about  it. 

"  '  10.  On  the  very  day  of  the  seance  I  had  on  my  shirt,  hidden 
under  my  neck-tie,  and  invisible  to  anyone,  a  diamond  stud  be- 
longing to  my  son-in-law.  I  must  say  that  I  was  quite  unaware 
of  having  it  on  that  day.  Harry  was  rather  a  dignified  and  very 
ambitious  man. 

"  *  11.  Like  all  Americans  when  at  leisure,  he  used  to  take  an 
easy  position.  He  was  very  fond  of  sticks  and  had  kept  one  of 
the  funniest  you  can  imagine  in  a  trunk  in  Paris  that  belonged 
to  him 

" '  13.  He  was  only  41  years  old  when  he  died,  and  he  had 
indeed  a  great  future  before  him;  being  very  intelligent,  active 
and  ambitious. 

" '  14.  He  died  first  and  his  little  girl,  my  grand-daughter,  was 
then  very  delicate  and  weak 

" '  17.  I  had  in  the  left  inside  pocket  of  my  coat  wrapped  in 
paper  and  in  an  envelope  a  lock  of  my  daughter's  hair 

" '  18.  My  daughter's  hair  was  of  a  chestnut  color. 

" '  19.  My  daughter  Marie  caught  the  influenza  from  her  sister 
and  was  taken  away  in  the  course  of  five  days  by  the  dreadful 
plague,  February,  '92,  in  the  prime  of  her  life,  at  the  age  of 
29 

" '  21.  The  person  mentioned  by  the  name  of  George  is  the 
Christian  name  of  my  other  son-in-law,  Mr.  Healy  (the  husband 
of  the  painting  lady)  who  lives  at  Chicago  and  is  still  there. 
[This  is  probably  G.  P.  A.  Healy,  one  of  the  few  American  paint- 
ers whose  portraits  hang  in  the  Uffizi  collection.  H.H.] 

" '  23.  Never  did  my  daughter's  hair  go  out  of  my  posses- 
sion  

" '  25.  The  hair,  as  said  before,  was  my  daughter's. 

"  ' Psychometry,  clairvoyance,  mind-reading,  telepathy 

Bay  the  men  of  science;  but  I  would  rather  call  it  spirit  infiu' 


Ch.  XXXVIII]    Sister  Dorothy  and  BoWy  621 

ence,  a  tie  of  union  between  all  the  worlds  of  the  universe. . . . 
The  message  was  given  in  a  child-like  way,  and  with  the  genu- 
ine accent  and  pronunciation  of  a  child.' " 

The  remaining  extracts  in  this  chapter  are  from  Mr.  Pid- 
dington's  report: 

(Pr.XVIII,213) :  "  Nelly  had  said  that  she  got  *  an  influence 
connected  with  the  lady  at  your  house  called  Dorothy.'  In 
spite  of  my  denial  of  there  being  any  person  so  named  connected 
with  my  wife,  Nelly  stuck  to  her  statement,  and  the  next  day  I 
discovered  that  the  name  of  a  hospital  nurse  who  had  come  to 
attend  my  wife  the  day  before  the  sitting  was  Dorothy."  , 

(Pr.XVIII,216-7)  :  "  The  next  sitting  at  which  I  was  present 
was  on  December  18th,  1899.  Towards  the  close  of  it  I  asked 
Nelly  for  more  news  about  Dorothy.  Nelly  was  annoyed  and 
testily  replied : — '  Oh,  don't  bother  me  about  Dorothy.  She's  a 
Tery  unimportant  person;  only  a  kind  of  servant.'  'Well,'  I 
said,  '  if  she  is  so  unimportant,  why  did  you  get  a  message  about 
her  ? '  '  Because,'  answered  Nelly,  without  the  least  hesitation, 
'  because  she  has  a  little  dead  brother,  who  wanted  to  send  a 
message.  We  call  him  Bob — Bobby.  He's  got  something  wrong 
with  him  in  the  neck  and  ear,  and  it  made  his  head  a  little 
bit  sideways.' 

"  I  wrote  to  Sister  Dorothy  to  inquire  if  there  were  any  truth 
in  this  statement.  Her  reply  was  to  this  effect :  that  she  had 
no  dead  brother  named  Bobby,  but  she  remembers  a  little  boy 
in  her  hospital  of  that  name,  rather  a  pet  of  hers,  who  had  a 
diseased  bone  in  his  neck 

"  Let  us  suppose  that  a  little  spirit-child,  Bobby,  was  cog- 
nizant of  Sister  Dorothy's  presence  in  my  house.  He  tells  Nelly 
during  the  seance  on  November  29 :  '  A  lady  connected  with  that 
gentleman  has  got  Sister  Dorothy  at  her  house.'  Nelly  repeats 
this  information  in  a  parrot-like  way:  misunderstands  the  use 
of  the  term  '  Sister,'  and  imagines  that  because  Bobby  talks  of 
'  Sister  Dorothy '  Bobby  must  be  Dorothy's  brother." 

(Pr.XVTII,219-20)  :  "  Nelly,  who  is  ready  enough  at  all  times 
to  volunteer  the  statement  that  she  is  '  getting  things  out  of 
people's  stomachs '  [See  solar  plexus,  p.  137.  H.H.] — which  is 
her  definition  of  the  telepathic  theory — would  not  offer  that 
explanation  here.  The  source  of  her  information  she  main- 
tained was  a  spirit-boy,  who  had  apparently  dropped  in  as  it 
were  at  a  sitting,  attracted  thereto  by  the  presence  of  someone 
at  whose  house  his  '  Sister  Dorothy '  was  staying 

"  Altogether  the  incident  is  a  most  complicated  and  perplex- 
ing one:  hard  to  account  for  in  my  view  by  telepathy  alone. 
The  way  in  which  the  details  dribbled  out  suggests  the  hap- 
hazard interchange  of  information  between  intelligences  like 


622   Tiddington's  Report  on  Mrs.  Thompson  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

ourselves  rather  than  the  successful  ferreting  out  of  facts  by 
means  of  the  purposeful  exercise  of  a  telepathic  faculty." 

(Pr.XVIII,222)  :  "  Nelly  at  least  does  her  work  more  or  less 
blindly  and  automatically.  More  than  this,  I  believe  she  re- 
gards the  whole  thing  as  a  game  or  puzzle  which  it  is  good  fun 
to  solve.  Nelly  is  no  glum  archangel;  she  never  displays  any 
consciousness  of  being  engaged  on  a  serious  mission,  nor  in- 
dulges in  prayer,  pious  ejaculations,  or  sanctimonious  discourse; 
and  is,  in  fact,  a  downright,  unsentimental,  debonnaire  being. 
She  is  prepared  to  play  the  game  under  what  she  considers  the 
proper  rules ;  but  if  these  are  overstepped . . .  she  protests  and  is 
inclined  to  sulk." 

(Pr.XVHI,214)  :  "  For  a  short  time  after  his  death  Nelly  de- 
nied with  obstinacy  that  Mr.  Myers  was  dead;  though  the  fact 
was  of  course  known  to  Mrs.  Thompson,  and  although  the  Sidg- 
wick  control  was  represented  as  perfectly  cognizant  of  it." 

(Pr.XVIII,231-7)  :  "  One  curious  point  about  the  script  is 

that  Nelly  will  not  accept  any  responsibility  for  it Thus  on 

January  3rd,  1901 . . .  Nelly  said : — '  You  don't  think  Mr.  Myera 
is  so  ill ;  he's  much  worse.'  '  Yes,'  I  replied,  '  but  you  wrote  to 
the  contrary.'  'I  don't  care  what  I've  written,'  retorted  Nelly; 
'  don't  put  it  down  to  me.'. . .  January  8th,  1901.  '  It's  not  me 
that  writes.  It's  always  somebody  else  that's  writing.  Not  me, 
even  if  I  tell  you  so.' " 


The  Sidgwick  Script 

". . .  But  it  cannot  be  said  that  Mrs.  Thompson's  automatic  script 
presents  any  specially  interesting  features  as  a  general  rule.  It 
is  not  the  chief  method  of  communication  as  in  Mrs.  Piper's 
case.  Still  to  this  rule  there  is  one  exception,  and  that  a  most 
important  one ...  a  control  which  purports  to  represent  the  late 
Professor  Henry  Sidgwick,  whom  Mrs.  Thompson  had  met  sev- 
eral times.  This  control  communicated  directly  by  the  voice, 

but  also  by  means  of  writing On  December  20th,  1900 . . . 

Mrs.  Benson  brought  with  her  to  the  sitting  a  paper-knife  that 
had  belonged  to  her  brother. . . .  On  January  llth,  1901 ...  a 
good  deal  of  script  was  done . . .  purporting  to  come  from  the 
Percival  control.  Across  this  script  and  intermingled  with  it 
were  written  in  a  different  handwriting,  though  in  a  handwriting 
showing  no  trace  of  resemblance  to  that  of  Professor  Sidgwick, 
the  words  '  Trin  y  Henry  Sidg.'  The  first  five  letters  seem  like 
an  attempt  at  '  Trinity,'  and  suggest  that  a  reference  was  in- 
tended to  Trinity  College,  Cambridge.  On  another  page  . . .  was 
the  word  'paper-cutter.'  This  was  written  I  should  say  in 
Mrs.  Thompson's  natural  hand No  paper-cutter  had  been  pre- 
sented to  the  medium  at  this  sitting,  and  it  is  therefore  fair  to 
conclude  that  the  appearance  on  the  same  sheet  of  paper  of  an 


Ch.  XXXVIII]    'Sidgwick,  Gurney,  and  Myers  Controls    623 

obvious  attempt  at  the  name  'Henry  Sidgwick'  and  of  the 
word  '  paper-cutter '  was  not  accidental 

"  I  asked  Nelly  if  Mr.  Gurney  was  present.  Nelly  made  the 
cryptic  answer : — '  About  the  trio.'  '  Who  are  the  trio  ? '  I  asked. 
'  Henry  Sidgwick,  Edmund  Gurney,  and  Mr.  Myers,'  replied 
Nelly.  '  Henry  Sidgwick  is  here.'  The  Sidgwick  control  then 
made  its  first  appearance,  and,  though  the  words  spoken  were 
few,  the  voice,  manner  and  style  of  utterance  were  extraordinar- 
ily lifelike:  so  much  so  indeed  that,  had  I  been  ignorant  of 
Professor  Sidgwick's  death  and  had  happened  to  hear  the  voice 
without  being  able  to  tell  whence  it  was  issuing,  I  think  I  should 
have  unhesitatingly  ascribed  it  to  him. 

"  The  next  sitting  was  on  January  21st,  1901,  and  directly 
trance  came  on  and  before  the  sitters  entered  the  room,  Nelly  be- 
gan:— 'Where's  Henry  Sidgwick?  He's  coming  to  talk  after 
the  sitting.'  As  soon  as  the  sitters  left  the  Sidgwick  control 
made  an  ineffectual  effort  to  speak.  Nelly  then  came  to  the 
rescue  and  gave  the  following  message : — '  Mr.  Piddington,  he 
can't  talk.  He  wants  to  write  himself,  when  you're  not  thinking 

of  him She  will  write  it  at  4.30.'  '  Who,'  I  asked,  '  will 

write  it?  The  medium?'  'Yes,'  said  Nelly.  The  Sidgwick 
control  then  took  Nelly's  place;  and  again  the  impersonation 
was  most  extraordinarily  lifelike.  The  only  two  occasions  on 
which  I  have  been  emotionne,  or  have  experienced  the  slightest 
feeling  of  uncanniness  during  a  spiritualistic  seance,  or  have 
felt  myself  in  danger  of  being  carried  away,  were  during  these 
two  manifestations  of  the  Sidgwick  control.  I  felt  that  I  was 
indeed  speaking  with,  and  hearing  the  voice  of,  the  man  I  had 
known;  and  the  vividness  of  the  original  impression  has  not 
faded  with  time. 

"After  Nelly  had  explained  that  her  mother  was  to  be  pre- 
pared to  receive  an  automatically-written  message  the  same 
afternoon  at  4.30,  the  Sidgwick  control  spoke  as  follows : — '  He's 
not  with  me.'  (The  '  He '  undoubtedly  meant  Mr.  Myers.  This 
sentence  and  the  next  were  spoken  with  great  emotion.)  J.  G. 
P.:  'Is  he  resting?'  H.  S. :  'He's  not  within  range  at  all.... 
Alice*  will  know  that  it's  me  [sic]  that's  written  it.  She'll 
recognize  it.  She'll  know  it's  my  writing.  Tell  her  to  compare 
it  with  the  others.' 

"  '  Didn't  Frederic  Myers  leave  it  to  the  Society  ?  The  books 
— not  those  for  you — I  will  write  it.  You  always  thought  me 
old  and  shabby,  but  I'm  shabbier  now.' 

"  The  final  sentence  was  apparently  got  out  with  immense 
effort,  and  then  the  personation  stopped  with  a  snap.  It  was 

*Pr.  XVIII.  238  says:  "Miss  Alice  Johnson ...  (as  Mrs.  Thompson 
knew)  has  been  Mrs.  Sidgwick's  private  secretary  for  many  years,  and 
therefore  had  every  opportunity  of  becoming. . .  familiar  with  Professor 
Sidgwick's  handwriting." 


624   Piddington's  Report  on  Mrs.  Thompson  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

just  like  the  swift  and  unexpected  withdrawal  of  a  magic-lantern 
slide." 

Shortly  after  was  given  much  writing,  ostensibly  from  the 
Sidgwick  control.  Several  fac-similes  of  it  are  given  in  Pr. 
XVIII,  238-43.  Mr.  Piddington  continues: 

(Pr.XVm,242) :  "  [P.]  Mrs.  Sidgwick,  in  a  letter  addressed 
to  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  speaks  of  '  the  unmistakable  likeness  of  the 
handwriting ' ;  and  Mrs.  Benson  in  a  letter  addressed  to  me  after 
examining  the  various  sheets  containing  the  script,  says  of 
them : — '  The  more  I  look  at  them,  the  more  I  am  struck  with 
the  likeness.' 

"  I  showed  specimens  of  the  script  to  one  or  two  people  who 
were  well  acquainted  with  Professor  Sidgwick's  handwriting, 
without  of  course  giving  any  hint  of  what  answer  I  was  expect- 
ing, and  asked  them  to  cast  just  a  cursory  glance  at  them,  and 
then  say  whose  handwriting  it  was.  In  each  case  the  answer 
came  without  hesitation,  to  the  effect  that  it  was  Professor 
Sidgwick's  writing —  .As  evidence  for  identity  the  script,  re- 
markable though  it  is,  seems  to  me  worth  little  or  nothing.  I 
am  not  much  of  a  dreamer,  and  at  best  am  not  a  vivid  one,  and 
I  am  about  as  poor  a  visualizer  as  could  be  found,  yet  in  my 
dreams  I  have  more  than  once  dreamt  that  I  have  received  let- 
ters from  a  friend  or  acquaintance,  and  in  the  dream-letter  the 
characteristic  handwriting  of  my  dream-correspondent  has  been 
depicted  to  the  life.  If  so  poor  a  visualizer  as  myself  can  in 
sleep  summon  up  so  clear  a  picture  of  another's  handwriting,  it 
is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  Mrs.  Thompson  in  trance  enjoys  at 
least  an  equal  capacity,  and  there  seems  to  me  to  be  but  a  small 
step  between  such  capacity  for  visualization  and  the  power  of 
making  a  graphic  reproduction  of  the  visual  image." 

All  the  difference  in  the  world:  for  Mrs.  Thompson  did 
not  know  Professor  Sidgwick's  handwriting.  Does  Mr.  Pid- 
dington mean  that  she  got  a  telepathic  vision  of  it  from 
him  (P)  or  a  teloteropathic  one  somewhere  else?  Even 
Podmore  says  of  these  writings  (New.  Spir.,  p.  203)  : 

"  They  bear  a  very  striking,  and  indeed  quite  unmistakable, 
resemblance  to  the  writing  of  Mr.  Henry  Sidgwick.  Mrs. 
Thompson  states  that  she  had  never  seen  his  writing.  But,  of 
course,  there  may  have  been  opportunities  for  her  to  see  it  un- 
consciously." 

Isn't  this  a  little  "  thin,"  especially  in  view  of  some  recent 
reason  to  doubt  that  observations  lie  latent  ? 

Wasn't  it  Mr.  Piddington's  business  to  prove  that  she  had 


Ch.  XXXVIII]    Nelly's  Script,  Gloom  and  Prophecies    625 

seen  the  writing,  or  is  the  whole  burden  of  proof  on  the 
proponent  of  the  extraordinary  ? 

(Pr.XVIII,243)  :  "  In  spite  of  Nelly's  denial  of  responsibility 
for  any  of  the  automatic  script,  there  is  one  instance  where  it  is 
extremely  difficult  to  suppose  that  she  was  not  the  author  of  it. 
...  A  lady  had  entered  the  seance-room  . . .  and  after  Nelly  had 
made  one  or  two  slight  references  to  her,  the  following  sentences 
were  written : — '  Don't  ask  me  any  more  questions.  I  hate  the 
blue  blouse.'  The  lady  in  question  was  wearing  a  blue  blouse. 
Now,  throughout  this  sitting  there  was  not  the  slightest  indica- 
tion that  any  control  other  than  Nelly  was  concerned  in  the 
communications ;  and,  even  apart  from  that  fact,  the  context  in- 
disputably shows  that  the  '  I '  must  refer  to  Nelly.  The  phrase- 
ology, too,  is  characteristic  of  her. . . .  The  simplest  explanation 
...  is  that  she  wrote,  instead  of  spoke ...  in  order  to  avoid  giving 
offense." 

(Pr.XVIII,246-51) :  "  The  dominant  note  of  a  large  propor- 
tion of  Nelly's  prophecies  is  their  gloom,  their  appalling  gloom. 
I  have  noted  in  all  25  predictions  in  the  series  of  sittings 
under  discussion,  and  out  of  these  eleven  are  of  a  lugubrious 
character —  .  The  most  inspiriting  one  that  I  can  find  is  to 
this  effect,  namely,  that  someone  who  is  dead  would  have  been 
better  off  (i.e.,  would  have  come  in  for  money)  had  he  lived. 
Nelly  takes  the  most  dismal  views  of  people's  health.  On  several 
occasions  she  has  shown  anxiety  to  number  my  days;  not  that 
I've  ever  allowed  her  to  get  so  far,  because  happily  I  have  fore- 
seen what  was  coming  (I  have  learnt  to  recognize  the  sympa- 
thetic voice  and  manner  with  which  she  prophesies  evil  things), 
and  stopped  her  in  time 

He  gives  several  of  her  prophecies  and  concludes  with  the 
following  very  wise  remarks: 

"  This  ends  my  list  of  Nelly's  gloomy  forebodings,  and  so  far 
for  not  one  of  them  can  success  be  claimed.  One  is  almost 
tempted  to  deduce  from  them  a  law  ('  Nelly's  law '),  that  if  any- 
thing unpleasant  is  foretold  it  is  sure  not  to  come  off. 

"  I  may  be  accused  of  treating  this  part  of  the  subject  with 
undue  flippancy.  If  my  flippancy  will  only  induce  a  flippant 
attitude  in  the  victims  of  pessimistic  prophecies,  its  object  will 
hare  been  attained. . . .  The  bad  effects  that  predictions  can  pro- 
duce on  nervous  people  are  too  obvious  to  need  insisting  on.  A 
man  sound  in  body  and  mind  might  listen  unmoved  to  a  pre- 
diction of  the  date  and  cause  of  his  own  death,  mock  at  it,  and 
disregard  it.  But  illness  comes  and  upsets  the  healthy  bodily 
and  mental  balance,  and  what  then?  The  prediction  which 
sounded  so  absurd  a  few  months  back  has  now  become  rather 
disturbing,  until  at  last  it  grips  the  man's  imagination  and  thus 


626   Piddington's  Report  onMrs.  Thompson  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

may  well  secure  its  fulfilment.  Or,  another  possibility,  X.  is 
told  that  he  will  be  involved  in  a  bad  carriage  accident.  Some 
time  after  he  is  out  driving,  the  horses  are  frightened  by  a  pass- 
ing motor-car,  the  prediction  suddenly  flashes  across  X.'s  mind, 
his  nerve  is  momentarily  shaken  by  the  recollection,  he  loses  his 
head  for  an  instant,  and  an  accident  results,  which,  but  for  the 
paralyzing  effects  of  the  prediction,  would  have  never  occurred." 

Mr.  Piddington  does  not  take  much  stock  in  Nellie's 
prophecies.  Here  are  a  couple  of  average  specimens : 

(Pr.XVIII,257) :  "  On  December  20th,  1900,  Nelly  predicted 
who  would  be  the  sitter  at  the  next  sitting.  '  I'm  going  to  see 
you  with  that  spectacled  gentleman  the  next  time.  I  don't  know 
who  it  is.  Put  it  down  for  the  truth.' 

"  I  put  it  down  for  the  truth,  and  took  no  measures  either  to 
help  or  to  impede  the  truth  coming  true. 

"  Unhappily,  instead  of  a  spectacled  gentleman,  the  next  sitter 
was  a  lady  wearing  pince-nez.  Nelly  pointed  out  the  failure 
herself :  '  The  gentleman  with  the  spectacles — I  told  you  he  was 
coming.  You  see  it  isn't  a  gentleman  with  spectacles  on.'  She 
was  not  in  the  least  disconcerted,  nor  did  she  try  to  explain 
away  the  non-success  of  her  prediction.  In  fact  the  failure  of 
her  predictions  does  not  seem  to  worry  her;  I  suppose  she  has 
the  good  sense  to  set  no  great  store  by  them." 

(Pr.XVIII,258-9)  :  "  January  3rd,  1901 . . .  Nelly  said:—'  Mr. 
Ernest  Bennett — you  know  who  I  mean.  I'm  talking  to  you 

(i.e.,  J.  G.  P.).... He's  going  to  tell  you  a  lot  of  things 

What  made  me  think  of  it  (this  in  answer  to  a  question  asked 
by  J.  G.  P.)  was  I  saw  a  lot  of  people  dressed  up  like  ghosts,  and 
then  I  could  hear  you  and  Mr.  Bennett  laughing — and  then — 
and  then  you  seem  to  have  indigestion  after.'  J.  G.  P. :  '  Is  it 
future  or  past?'  Nelly:  'After;  it's  what  you've  got  to  come 
to.' 

"I  went  straight  home.  Being  overtired,  and  as  a  conse- 
quence of  the  over-fatigue  suffering  from  indigestion,  I  lay 
down  on  my  bed. ...  I  had  been  resting  some  twenty  minutes  or 
so  when  Mr.  Ernest  Bennett  called  to  see  me.  I  had  no  idea  he 
was  going  to  call,  nor  did  I  know  any  particular  reason  why  he 

should Of  course,  as  soon  as  I  was  told  that  Mr.  Bennett  had 

called,  Nelly's  prediction  came  into  my  mind Mr.  Bennett  at 

once  explained  the  object  of  his  visit,  which  was  to  tell  me  of 
his  experiences  at  a  haunted  house  in  the  West  of  England. . . . 
I  had  not  any  notion  what  he  could  be  coming  to  talk  about; 
and  also  when  Nelly  spoke  about  Mr.  Bennett  and  people  dress- 
ing up  as  ghosts  it  suggested  nothing  to  my  mind Mr.  Ben- 
nett . . .  expressed  the  opinion  that  one  of  the  alleged  phenomena 
was  due  to  a  servant's  practical  joke 

"  I  think  Mrs.  Thompson  either  knew  or  knew  of  Mr.  Ernest 


Ch.  XXXVIII]  Nelly  on  Babies  627 

Bennett,  and  if  so,  I  cannot  attach  much  importance  to  Nelly 
having  said :  '  Then  I  could  hear  you  and  Mr.  Bennett  laughing.' 
Mr.  Bennett  will,  I  hope,  forgive  me,  if  I  say  that,  as  a  rule 
where  he  is,  there  too  is  laughter,  and  often  'laughter  holding 
both  her  sides/" 

(Pr.XVIII,261-2) :  "  There  is  one  string  on  which  Nelly  harps 
with  such  persistency  that  I  grew  to  listen  for  the  familiar 
twang  at  each  sitting.  Babies — babies  who  died  at,  or  before, 
or  soon  after  birth,  are  a  subject  of  irresistible  attraction  to 
Nelly 

"  It  may  be  that  the  explanation  must  be  looked  for  in  the 
particular  circumstances  of  the  life-history  of  the  real  Nelly. 
Mrs.  Thompson's  daughter  Nelly  died  when  only  a  few  months 
old,  and  her  own  brief  span  of  earth-life  may  perhaps  account 
for  her  interest  in  '  the  fate  of  the  unbaptized.'. . .  I  think  I  am 
justified  in  saying  that  with  Phinuit,  too,  infantum  animae  are 
a  favorite  topic,  though,  by  the  way,  he  and  Nelly  are  far  from 
representing  them  as  flentes  in  limine  primo. ...  I  suppose  that 
nothing  has  been  more  abhorrent  to  the  modern  conscience  than 
certain  eschatological  teachings  about  the  fate  of  unbaptized 
children;  and  it  is  conceivable  that  the  insistence  both  of  Phi- 
nuit and  of  Nelly  upon  the  presence  of  babies  in  the  same 
spheres  of  existence  which  the  adult  dead  inhabit  should  be 
traced  to  a  common  desire  to  protest  against  this  damnable 
dogma." 

Sitting  of  December  1st,  1899.    (Pr.XVIII,263.) 

" There  was  a  break  in  the  trance,  and  the  second  part 

of  the  sitting  Nelly  opened  with  these  words : — '  What  was  that 
dead  baby  associated  with  the  hair-lady?  It  was  not  properly 
born.'  Dr.  van  Eeden  said : — '  I  don't  know ' ;  and  for  the  mo- 
ment Nelly  dropped  the  subject.  But  a  few  minutes  later  she 
reverted  to  it,  saying  to  Dr.  van  Eeden : — '  I  wish  you  would 
think  about  the  dead  baby.  The  hair-lady  has  the  entire  man- 
agement of  the  dead  baby.' 

"  The  '  hair-lady '  was  not  dead,  and  so  could  not  have  the 
management  of  a  dead  baby,  even  had  there  been  a  dead  baby 
to  manage,  and,  so  far  as  Dr.  van  Eeden  could  discover,  there 
was  no  dead  baby  which  could  be  said  to  be  associated  with  either 
the  lady  or  her  husband." 

aitting  of  January  5th,  1900.    (Pr.XVIII,263-4.) 

" Nelly  said  to  Miss  Gordon : — '  This  all  comes  through 

a  little  girl  who  died  long  ago — your  sister.  She  is  now  grown 
up.' 

"  Miss  Gordon  never  had  a  baby  sister,  or  a  sister  who  died 
young.  A  brother  died  two  hours  after  birth." 


628   Piddington's  Report  on  Mrs.  Thompson  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

Sitting  of  January  25th,  1900.    (Pr.XVIII,264-5.) 

" Nelly  said : — '  I  couldn't  find  the  lady  (i.e.,  Miss  Clegg) 

anywhere.  I  could  only  find  a  brother  of  this  gentleman  (i.e., 
Mr.  Wilson)  who  died  when  he  was  quite  a  tiny  microbe  baby.' 
A  brother  of  Mr.  Wilson's  had  died  within  a  few  hours  after 
its  birth." 

Nelly  on  Physical  Phenomena.    (Pr.XVHI,265-6.) 

"  Mrs.  Piper  has  never,  I  believe,  claimed  to  produce  physical 
phenomena :  and  among  a  certain  school  of  psychical  researchers 
this  failure  to  sound  '  toute  la  lyre '  of  mediumship  has  been 
counted  unto  her  for  righteousness.  Having  a  sneaking  affec- 
tion for  physical  phenomena,  I  am  glad  that  Nelly  has  the  cour- 
age of  her  opinions  and  boldly  proclaims  their  feasibility,  and 
further  lays  claim  to  having  produced  such  things  herself." 

Cf.  quotation  from  Podmore,  p.  603. 

Sitting  of  November  29th,  1899.    (Pr.XVIII,266-7.) 

"Nelly:  '  That  gentleman  [i.e.,  Dr.  van  Eeden]  has  been  to  a 
materializing  seance.'  Dr.  van  Eeden :  '  When  ? '  Nelly :  '  A 
short  time  ago.  There  is  a  strong  influence  of  somebody  cheat- 
ing all  the  time:  taking  off  clothes  and  so  on:  fraudulent 
throughout.'  This  statement  was  not  applicable  to  Dr.  van 
Eeden ;  though  it  would  have  been  to  myself,  the  recorder. 

"  I  then  asked  Nelly  to  tell  me  what  she  thought  about  materi- 
alizations: were  they  occasionally  genuine?  In  reply  she  gave 
this  message  from  Mrs.  Cartwright : — '  Whenever  a  spirit  materi- 
alizes it  is  quite  a  spontaneous  thing.' 

"  Nelly  proceeded  to  explain  this  by  saying — '  It  can't  be  done 
to  order  once  a  week ' ;  and  added,  '  Mrs.  Cartwright  dictated 
that  bit.' 

"Very  soon  after  this  Dr.  van  Eeden  asks  Nelly  if  she  can 
appear  to  people  in  dreams,  and  gets  the  reply : — '  I  never  tried 
except  with  Mother.  I'm  going  to  materialize  one  day  for 
Father  to  show  him  the  color  of  my  hair:  black  curly  hair,  not 
light  like  Mother's. 

" '  Mr.  Thurston's  sister  came  and  talked  at  Mother's  house. 
She  was  materialized.  (This  was  quoted  as  an  instance  of  a 
non-fraudulent  materialization.) 

"'Mrs.  Corner  once  was  properly  materialized — about  three 
years  ago — at  a  lady's  house.' " 

We  shall  meet  Nelly  again. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 
THE  THOMPSON-PIPER  JOSEPH  MARBLE  SERIES 

A  SERIES  with  Mrs.  Thompson  and  later  with  Mrs.  Piper, 
by  a  lady  whom  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  who  edits  them,  gives  the 
pseudonym  Mrs.  Rupert  Grove.  Sir  Oliver  calls  the  sittings 
"  interesting  and  distinctly  evidential."  He  farther  says  (Pr. 
XXIII,  255-6)  : 

"  Mrs.  Grove  herself  is  an  intelligent  lady  of  middle  age,  open- 
minded  as  to  the  genuineness  of  psychical  phenomena  of  all 
kinds,  but  in  her  own  judgment  tending  towards  skepticism, 
which  it  requires  frequently  renewed  experience  to  counteract. 
Such  renewal  of  experience,  from  time  to  time,  she  has  had 
through  her  husband,  who  has  been  more  or  less  familiar  with 
such  things  for  years.  But  his  attitude  to  them  is  unimportant, 
since  he  does  not  enter  into  this  series  except  by  incidental 
mention.  He  knew  Mr.  Marble  slightly,  since  he  also  had  lived 
for  some  years  in  the  same  neighborhood;  but  he  had  at  that 
time  no  knowledge  of  the  great  and  affectionate  intimacy  be- 
tween Mr.  Marble  and  his  future  wife.  He  is  still  living,  and 
I  think  I  am  right  in  assuming  that  he  knows  about  it  now  and 
has  learnt  not  to  resent  it.  Nevertheless  the  possibility  that  he 
might  dislike  it  is  another  reason  for  anonymity." 

Statement  by  Mrs.  Grove,  Made  14th  June,  1907,  with  Reference 
to  Incidents  before  the  Sittings.    (Pr.XXIII,256.) 

" '  Mr.  Joseph  Marble  and  his  sister,  Mrs.  Kate  Sandford,  were 
neighbours  of  each  other  and  also  neighbours  and  old  friends 
of  my  mother,  near  Ashton ;  and  he  had  a  small  "  works  "  not 
far  from  Stalybridge.  Both  were  well-read,  clear-headed,  some- 
what skeptical There  was  a  strong  and  very  deep  affection 

between  us,  unknown  to  anyone  else.  Some  years  after  my  mar- 
riage, when  I  had  gained  a  little  experience  of  psychical  mat- 
ters through  a  few  visits  to  a  medium  in  1896,  I  often  spoke  to 
them  separately,  but  especially  to  him,  on  the  subject,  trying  to 
make  him  realize  and  see  things  as  I  was  beginning  with  a  good 
deal  of  hesitation  to  see  them ;  but  without  success.  He  listened 

629 


630    Thompson-Piper  Joseph  Marble  Series    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV. 

as  he  would  have  listened  to  anything  I  told  him,  but  more  with 
amusement  than  acceptance. 

" '  Mrs.  Sandford  was  equally  incredulous,  and  said,  rather 
distinctly,  that  she  did  not  like  such  things.  So  I  never  really 
expected  to  get  communications  purporting  to  come  from  them. 

" '  Nevertheless,  in  two  sittings  with  Mrs.  Thompson,  during 
the  Spring  of  1900,  about  three  years  after  Mr.  Marble's  death 

. . .  communications  seemed  to  come  from  Mr.  Marble His 

sister  (a  widow)  was  then  alive.'" 

Notes  of  those  sittings  follow  immediately.  After  them 
are  given  notes  of  some  sittings  with  Mrs.  Piper  in  1906, 
after  Mrs.  Sandford's  death. 

Mrs.  Grove's  First  Sitting  with  Mrs.  Thompson,  in  1900. 
(Pr.XXIII,257f.) 

"  (Control  '  Nelly '  speaking.)  «  There's  Mr.  Myers.  Yes  I'm 
very  happy  to  get  things  for  other  people.  (I  gave  the  medium 
a  Scotch  plaid  tie  to  hold  which  had  belonged  to  my  deceased 
friend  Mr.  Marble.)  What  makes  me  say  Stalybridge  ? '  Mrs. 
G. :  '  Good.'  N. :  '  I  dont  know  where  it  is,  a  horribly  smoky 
place A  stout  good  tempered  influence  with  this,  easy  com- 
fortable jolly Its  as  if  he  wants  to  cough;  can't  breathe  very 

well. — Joseph  Limestone.  [The  real  name  is  Marble.]  . . .  You 
know,  Alice  [Mrs.  Grove.  H.H.],  it  seems  as  if  he  says  he  always 
doubted  about  people  coming  to  talk  when  they  were  dead,  but  he 
knows  now  it  is  true. ...  I  can't  understand  the  relationship,  be- 
cause there  is  such  a  bond  of  love  between  you  as  doesn't  exist 
between  ordinary  people.  Beloved  Alice,  that's  what  he  says — 
he  wants  you  to  comfort  someone  that's  left  crying  for  him — he 
wants  you  to  tell  them  that  it  was  a  sort  of  shock — he  didn't 
seem  to  be  ill  long.  [His  illness  did  not  last  3  days.]  In  spite 
of  all  he  loves  he  doesn't  want  to  come  back.  He's  waiting  for 
Alice.  He  says  there  is  no  separation  of  love  in  Heaven.  Does 
he  mind?  But  you  did  so  straightforwardly  tell  him  [i.e.,  Mr. 
Grove].  My  poor  little  woman,  how  sorry  I  was  for  you.  He 
says  he  told  you  not  to  wear  a  bonnet,  he  always  liked  to  see  you 
in  a  hat.  [True.]  You  will  let  him  kiss  you  now,  you  used  to 
screw  yourself  up  from  him.  He  said  he  ought  to  have  been 
more  patient.  He  can  see  the  truth  of  your  heart  now. . . .  He 
said  sometimes  you  were  your  own  self  and  other  times  you 
weren't.  But  he  says  neither  of  you  wronged  anyone  else. . . . 
He  says  you  were  nicest  to  him  in  the  train — it  was  the  only 

time  you  were  yourself He  seemed  to  be  doing  something  he 

ought  not.  It  seems  as  though  he  doesn't  like  to  tell  me.  Per- 
haps he  can  write  it.'  [All  this  is  entirely  intelligible  and  cor- 
rect. The  hand  of  the  medium  now  writes  matter  fairly  appro- 
priate, with  his  real  surname,  Marble,  written  in  full  and  cor- 


Ch.  XXXIX]    Thompson  Veridicities  and  Intimacies     631 

rectly.]  . . . '  Why  did  I  take  it  so  hard  ?  The  knowledge  of  all 
we  were  to  each  other  ought  to  keep  me  till  we  meet  and  are 
united.'  Mrs.  G. :  '  Then  what  about  my  Rupert  ? '  [Her  hus- 
band. H.H.]  N. :  '  Oh!  there  are  no  jealousies  and  no  relation- 
ships, but  souls  united.  He  is  sure  Rupert  won't  be  cross  at 
souls  united.  He  seems  to  say  "  Alice  love  me  just  this  once," 
and  seems  to  be  trembling  and  trembling.  It  seems  to  commence 

by  your  going  in  the  train Oh  God — but  he  does  not  believe 

in  God  does  he?  [In  a  Piper  Sitting,  six  years  later,  he  is  rep- 
resented as  saying,  through  Rector,  '  I  do  believe  in  God  now.'] 
. . .  Do  you  know  what  a  passionate  love  on  one  side  and  a  sis- 
terly love  on  the  other — that's  what  it  is.  He  hasn't  any  pa- 
tience with  Platonic  affection.' " 

Second  Sitting  of  Mrs.  Grove  with  Mrs.  Thompson. 
(Pr.XXIII,261f.) 

"  N. :  '. . .  Have  you  been  painting  a  picture,  Mrs.  Grove  ?  be- 
cause he  sees  you  with  a  pinafore  on  painting — he  used  to  watch 
you  painting.'  [True,  and  also  true  that  I  had  been  recently 
painting  a  picture.]  Mrs.  G. :  '  Can  you  tell  me  what  the  pic- 
ture was  ? '  [Really  a  portrait  of  him  from  a  photograph.] 

N.  (Long  silence)  :  '  You  seem  to  be  copying  off  another All 

the  Elliotts  know  him.  He  only  loved  one  Elliott;  [Elliott  was 
my  former  name]  but  you  mustn't  be  jealous — he  once  loved  an 
Alice  Elliott — You're  not  cross  are  you? — He  didn't  marry  her. 
[This  was  Mrs.  Grove  herself.  H.H.]  . . .  You  won't  be  cross  will 
you,  but  you  know  his  heart  seems  to  go  out  to  her  more  than  to 
anyone  else.  [Nelly  never  seemed  to  know  my  former  name,  or 
to  suspect  that  this  really  referred  to  me.]  . . .  He  says  he  is  not 
in  the  same  house  "  Nelly  "  is  in.  When  he  is  there,  which  he 
hopes  to  be  soon,  he  can  talk  to  her  without  getting  in  a  muddle.' 
[This  is  probably  intended  to  signify  that  he  is  not  yet  at  the 
same  stage  of  progression  as  the  reporting  control.]  . . .  (Writing 
r-ontinued.)  '  My  dear  Alice  tis  not  that  I  am  unwilling,  but  I 
am  now  though  not  then  convinced  that  we  are  both  best  to 
leave  our  loves.  This  life  has  brought  me  the  joy  and  happiness 
I  so  often  sought  but  sought  in  vain.  I  was  so  deuced  selfish  in 
my  love  but  now  I  see  it  is  better  left  alone — and  try  my  dear 
Alice  to  forget  me  as  you  used  to  pretend  so  well  to  do. ...  I  have 
suffered  for  the  wrong  I  would  have  done  to  others  but  now  it 
is  best  for  me  not  to  communicate  in  this  or  any  other  way.  I 
lore  you  still  but  only  by  giving  you  this  proof  in  our  case  is 
best  left  alone — for  one  year.  Remember  in  one  year  I  will  give 
you  all  the  proof,  nay  more,  but  dearest  dont  ask  me  now.  I 
never  thought  I  should  attempt  in  so  rubbishy  a  manner  to 
demonstrate  the  truth  of  your  own  strange  belief,  but  I  live  I 
live,  and  that  is  sufficient  for  now,  and  more,  much  more,  than 
anything  I  ever  thought  of. . . .'  [The  whole  of  the  above  is 
extremely  appropriate.] 


632    Thompson-Piper  Joseph  Marble  Series   [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 
"  Notes  ly  O.J.I. 

"  All  this  J.  M.  business  is  extraordinarily  good.  It  is  really 
more  life-like  than  the  subsequent  quieter  Piper  impersonation, 
some  six  or  seven  years  later.  At  that  time,  however,  the  attempt 
to  give  evidence,  here  foreshadowed,  is  really  made:  and  the 
Control  shows  some  knowledge  of  what  was  said  here,  e.g.,  by 
writing  that  '  he  does  believe  in  God  now.'  (Of.  ante.) 

"  The  substitution  on  one  occasion  of  '  Mr.  Limestone '  for 
Mr.  Marble  is  characteristic  of  the  '  Nelly '  control,  and  recalls 
the  substitution  of  '  Happyfield '  for  Merrifield,  as  reported  in 
Vol.  17,  p.  208 

"  After  this  the  same  Control  sent  occasional  messages  through 
other  mediums,  to  whom  Mrs.  Grove  occasionally  went  anony- 
mously, hoping  to  get  some  more  evidence.  These  communica- 
tions are  hardly  worth  reporting;  but  as  no  clue  of  any  kind 
was  given,  they  seemed  beyond  chance,  since  they  clearly  had 
reference  to  the  same  personality  and  incidents.  But  of  course 
they  were — like  most  of  this  series — well  within  the  scope  of 
telepathy.  [Was  the  dramatic  character?  H.H.]  . . .  The  few  in- 
cidents outside  the  scope  of  telepathy . . .  were  obtained  through 
Mrs.  Piper — from  whose  script  on  this  subject  I  now  extract 

portions In  the  interim,  between  1900  and  1906,  Mrs.  Kate 

Sandf ord,  sister  of  Mr.  Joseph  Marble,  had  died 

"  The  main  difference  between  the  communications  received 
through  Mrs.  Thompson,  as  reported  above,  and  the  communi- 
cations which  follow,  obtained  through  Mrs.  Piper,  lies  in  the 
fact  that  one  was  conversational  and  therefore  easy,  whereas  the 
other  was  hampered  by  the  difficulty  of  deciphering  a  more  or 

less  illegible  script For  part  of  Mrs.  Grove's  time  I  was 

present  and  assisted  with  the  reading,  but  the  presence  of  an 
outside  person  is  naturally  perturbing,  and  hence  the  oppor- 
tunity for  referring  to  intimate  matters  was  not  so  complete  as 
during  the  previous  voice  sittings  with  Mrs.  Thompson  alone. 
Another  difference  seems  to  be  due  to  the  fact  that  at  the  later 
date  communication  begins  not  directly  with  Mr.  Marble  himself 
but  with  his  now  deceased  sister;  and  the  presence  of  this  addi- 
tional communicator  exerted  another  restraining  influence — not 
only  on  the  other  side,  so  to  speak,  but  even  I  thought  on  Mrs. 
Grove. 

"  Anxiety  to  communicate  in  an  evidential  manner  if  possible, 
and  genuine  affection,  were  manifested  now  as  strongly  as  be- 
fore; but  the  tone  was  somewhat  more  sedate,  and  more  what 
may  be  called  '  religious.'  Probably  most  of  this  is  due  to  the 
intervention  of  Rector,  but  it  is  represented  as  indicating  some 
progress  in  the  communicator  himself 

"  Let  it  be  remembered  then  that  the  remaining  communica- 
tions are  obtained,  not  as  heretofore  through  Mrs.  Thompson  by 
the  voice,  but  through  Mrs.  Piper  by  writing." 


Ch.  XXXIX]  'Sundry  Veridicities  633 

Sitting  of  Mrs.  Grove  with  Mrs.  Piper  in  November,  1906. 
(Pr.XXTTT,265f.) 

"  [O.  J.  L.]  ...  I  take  the  beginning,  and  then  a  bit  out  of 
the  middle:  the  beginning  of  Mr.  Marble's  appearance,  as  a 
communicator  through  Mrs.  Piper ...  is  very  hazy  and  confused 
at  first,  but,  as  soon  as  it  is  properly  established,  this  impersona- 
tion will  be  recognized  as  fairly  consistent  with  the . . .  repre- 
sentation through  Mrs.  Thompson  . . .  obtained  six  and  a  half 
years  previously.  The  opening  words  of  the  following  record 
purport  to  be  from  Mrs.  Sandford: — 

" '  I  am  well  and  happy  in  this  life,  so  is  my  brother  Martin 
who  greets  you  with  great  love.  [This  name  Martin  [for  Marble. 
H.H.]  seems  to  be  merely  a  muddle  of  Rector's.]  Kate  and 
Martin  [?]  are  both  here  to  greet  you.  He  asks  me  to  remind 
you  of  a  ring  which  you  had  a  long  time  ago.'  Mrs.  G. :  '  I  am 
glad  to  meet  Kate  again,  but  I  do  not  know  Martin.'  K. : '  Speak 
to  me. . . .'  M. :  '  Don't  let  me  get  confused — that  sign.  No  one 
could  recall  better  than  myself  that  ring  (not  read)  but  myself 
would  remember  that  ring.'  Mrs.  G. :  '  No.'  M. :  '  I  am  really 

near  you  now,  and  so  glad  to  have  found  my  way  here Do 

you  remember  anything  about  Hall  ? '  Mrs.  G. :  '  A  hall  we 
used  to  pass  in  walking,  where  the  Jeffersons  lived  ? '  M.  (Ex- 
citement in  hand)  :  '  Not  far  from  that  hall.'  Mrs.  G. :  '  Do  you 
mean  Casford  Hall?  Yes  I  do.  I  told  Rector  again  and 
again.  Halsford  Hall.  M.  There  is  something  on  his  mind 
R[ector  explains.  H.H.]  which  he  is  anxious  to  recall  with  the 
lady  present.'  M. :  '  Dance.'  Mrs.  G. : '  Yes  yes.'  M. :  '  Together 
at  Hall,  at  Hall.  Not  so  ? '  Mrs.  G. :  '  No,  not  there '  [but  if  he 
meant  another  hall  it  would  be  right]. . . .  M. :  *  Do  you  remem- 
ber Singing?'  [or  possibly  &  portmanteau  attempt  at  Sunday 
morning.]  Mrs.  G. :  'Singing?  Yes,  very  badly.'  M. :  'I  re- 
member well.  Sunday  ming  [clearly  meant  for  either  evening 
or  morning.]  Repeat.  Not  singing.  I  was  going  to  progress 
and  go  on  in  this  life.  He  thinks  she  does  not  hear  him.' 
R[ector  explains  again.  H.H.]  ...Mrs.  G. :  'I  want  you  to  say 
something  that  I  may  know  it  is  you.'  M. :  '  Oh  yes.  Yes,  you 
used  to  sing  occasionally  sing  when  I  came  to  your  house.  You 
sang  evening  evening  the  last  time  I  heard  you.'  O.  J.  L. 
(Again  putting  in  his  oar)  :  '  Very  likely.'  M. :  '  Yes  you  did. 
I  think,  friend  [all  this  seems  to  be  through  Rector.  H.H.],  you 
had  better  leave  the  lady  to  speak.'  O.  J.  L. :  '  Shall  I  go 
away  ? '  R. :  '  I  think  so,  friend.'  O.  J.  L. :  '  May  I  bring  a 
friend  two  days  hence?'  R. :  'You  may  bring  him.'  O.  J.  L. : 
'  Farewell  then,  Rector.'  R. :  '  God  be  with  you.' 

"  (Mrs.  G.  was  now  left  alone  with  Lady  Lodge  and  almost  at 
once  the  conditions  improved.)  . . .  M. :  Me.  Yes,  I  am  he.  I  am 
Marbl  I  am  so  glad  and  so  very  happy  to  see  you  again.  I  never 
shall  cease  to  love  you,  never,  never,  shall  cease  to  love  NEVER.  I 


634    Thompson-Piper  Joseph  Marble  Series    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV. 

am  now  nearer  you  than  ever  before,  and  yet  progressing  all  the 
time.'  Mrs.  G. :  'I must  progress  too.'  M. :  '  Yes,  you  must ;  but 
you  are  growing  better  every  year;  yes,  every  year.  Dear  Kate 
[His  sister.  H.H.],  she  loves  you  too,  and  she  longs  to  help  you  in 
that  life.  Ask  her  to  do  so.'  Mrs.  G. : '  How  shall  I  get  her  to  do 
this  ?  Do  you  mean  pray  ? '  M. :  '  Yes,  and  she  will  always  hear 
you.  So  shall  I.  I  see  and  know  when  you  think  of  me.  Do  you 
remember  you  said  you  could  not  in  that  life  ?  You  do  understand 
now  so  much  better.'  Mrs.  G. :  '  Yes,  I  do,  but  I  did  not  under- 
stand then.'  M. :  'It  hurt  me  then,  but  I  understand  it  all  now. 
I  never  loved  more.  I  see  the  ring  I  gave  you.  I  do  so  well.  I 
was  attracted  to  it,  and  how  could  I  help  coming  back  to  you? 
...  I  longed  to  return,  to  return.  Do  you  understand  ? '  Mrs. 
G. :  '  Yes,  I  do.'  M. :  '  I  tried,  Alice,  to  love  many  times — a 
good  many  times,  but  could  not,  but  I  could  not.'  [This  is  in- 
telligible also,  but  the  explanation  would  be  long.] 

"Mrs.  G.:  'Is  Kate  here?'  K:  'Yes  I  am  here  dear.  Joe 
feels  so  bad  to  think  that  he  could  not  understand  what  you 
said  better.  He  says  he  does  understand  you  about  the  last  dance 
at  his  house,  and  going  home  with  you.  I  understand  also  all 

that.  I  never  knew  when  I  was  in  the  body '  [This  is  true. 

She  did  not  know  of  the  terms  of  affection  we  were  on.  Nor 
indeed  did  anyone.]  . . .  Mrs.  G. :  '  Can  you  tell  me  whom  you 
have  met  in  your  world  ? '  [This  question  was  intended  to  ex- 
tract a  reference  to  her  husband,  who  long  pre-deceased  her; 
but,  instead,  a  curious  introduction  of  a  deceased  friend,  well 
known  to  both,  occurs. — O.J.L.]  [Was  it  probably  from  the 
sitter's  mind  then  ?  H.H.]  K. :  '  Do  you  remember  a  friend  of 
mine  named  Weston  ? '  Mrs.  G. :  '  No  I  do  not.'  K. :  '  Do  you 
remember  Bet  Best  Westn,  Alice  ? '  Mrs.  G. :  '  Yes  quite  well ; 
lots  of  them,  the  Wests.'  K. :  'Do  you?  I  have  seen  her  and 
her  father,  also  Best.'  Mrs.  G. :  '  Is  it  a  gentleman  or  a  lady  ? ' 

"  K. : '  Don't  you  remember  him  ?  A  gentleman.  He  asked  me 
the  other  day  if  I  had  really  spoken  to  you.  I  told  him  I  had 
tried  to  do  so ;  and  he  said,  ask  her  if  she  remembers  me  at  all.' 
Mrs.  G. :  'Yes,  well.  Can  he  give  his  Christian  name?'  K. : 
'  He  will.  Jim.'  Mrs.  G. :  '  I  remember  you  well.'  K. :  '  Jim 
West.'  [This  was  exactly  the  name  he  always  went  by:  he  died 
young.  He  was  a  very  intimate  friend.]  " 

Extracts  from  Further  Sittings  of  Mrs.  Grove  with  Mrs.  Piper. 
(Pr.XXIII,272f.) 

"  After  this  Mrs.  Grove  had  a  sitting  without  my  presence, 
and  the  following  is  a  small  part  of  the  record.  She  kept  a 
copy  of  all  her  own  remarks,  and  I  have  read  it. — O.J.L 

"  Mrs.  G. :  '  Ah,  at  last  the  right  name.  Why  did  you  call 
yourself  Kate  before? '  K. :  '  Because  I  did  it  for  Rector's  under- 
standing. I  am  with  you  dear  Alice.  I  see  and  understand  all 
your  inquiry,  so  does  Joe. . . .  Alice  he  loves  you  dearly,  etc.' 


Ch.  XXXIX]    Identification  of  Marble's  Portrait  635 

(Then  he  was  represented  as  saying.)  M. :  l  Have  you  any  idea 
of  my  joy  at  meeting  you?  I  feel  it  must  mean  much  to  me  as 

life  goes  on My  sister  has  been  so  patient  and  kind  to  me. 

She  has  helped  me  to  find  you  dear,  as  she  came  to  this  life  after 

I  did.    [Correct.]    Pray  for  me  always,  etc ' 

"  M. :  '  Now  dear  I  am  not  sure  that  I  can  give  you  further 

proofs  of  identity,  because  I  am  Marble 1  love  you  dearly.    I 

always  did,  and  my  life  would  be  a  barren  waste,  he  says  a 
barrent  waste,  without  your  prayers  and  love.'  Mrs.  G. :  'A 
barren  waste  ?  I  thought  you  were  happy.'  M. :  '  Oh  yes,  I  am 
absolutely  happy.  I  understand  so  much  better  now.'  Mrs.  G. : 
'  What  should  I  pray  for  ? '  M. :  '  For  a  re-union  of  our  souls, 
for  my  peace,  and  for  me  to  be  able  to  reach  you  in  this  meager 

and  simple  way Do  you  love  me,  and  do  you  understand  how 

blind  I  was?  Forgive  me.'  Mrs.  G. :  'You  mean  your  incre- 
dulity [Regarding  God  and  the  future  life.  H.H.] ;  but  you 
cannot  make  people  believe.'  M. :  '  Yes,  but  I  was  so  stupid,  I 
would  not  believe  dear.  Now  I  understand  I  am  sorry  I  did  not.' 
Mrs.  G. :  'Does  it  make  any  difference?'  M. :  'Only  I  feel  I 
hurt  you  dear.'  Mrs.  G. : '  Not  much.'  M. :  '  But  I  did  not  have 
the  opportunity,  did  I  really  dear  ? '  Mrs.  G. :  '  No.  It  is  time 
to  close  now.'  R." 

If  you  remember  Mrs.  Piper's  identification  of  the  portrait 
of  George  Pelham,  you  will  be  doubly  interested  in  the  fol- 
lowing (Pr.  XXIII,  276-8)  : 

"  [O.  J.  L.]  Sitting  lasted  from  11.10  to  1.10. 

"After  lunch  I  took  eleven  photographs  of  men,  and  asked 
Mrs.  Piper  if  she  had  ever  seen  any  of  them.  She  looked  over 
them,  hesitating  on  the  one  representing  Mr.  Joseph  Marble  for 
some  time,  and  then  picked  that  out  and  said  she  had  seen  that 
man  somewhere,  but  she  could  not  remember  where 

"  Next  day,  in  the  evening,  I  tested  Mrs.  Piper  again  with 
another  set  of  photographs  of  men,  partly  the  same  and  partly 
different,  but  containing  among  others  the  critical  one.  This 
time,  however,  it  was  looked  at  without  comment  and  without 
interest,  and  no  remembrance  of  the  appearance  seemed  to  per- 
sist. She  remembered  the  fact  of  having  recognized  one  before ; 
but  when  asked  to  do  it  again,  she  picked  out,  after  much  hesita- 
tion, a  different  one  as  a  possibility,  and  said  that  she  thought 
it  had  been  found  in  America,  that  the  memory  evaporated  in 
time,  and  that  it  was  strongest  within  an  hour  of  the  sitting. 
The  test  made  the  day  before  had  been  made  about  an  hour  and 
a  half  after  the  sitting. 

"  And  this  is  the  record  of  the  second  of  the  two  waking- 
stages,  five  months  later:  the  'Joe'  here  referred  to  is  Mr. 
Marble,  who  had  been  represented  as  communicating  during  the 
Bitting : — 


636    Thompson-Piper  Joseph  Marble  Series   [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV. 

"  Waking  Stage  of  No.  14. 

" ' Help  Joe  make  it  completely  clear.    I  do  not  know 

what  I  had  to  do  with  it Fine  looking  man,  his  name  is 

Joe.  Mr.  Hodgson  keeps  pushing  him  in  the  front  row.  He 
was  a  large  man  and  then  all  of  a  sudden  he  went  out.  He  was 
a  nice  looking  man.  (A  number  of  men's  photographs  were 
now  placed  in  a  row  before  her:  she  immediately  pounced  on 
one  without  the  slightest  hesitation.)  That  is  the  man  I  saw.' 
. . .  [The  selection  was  correct;  the  photograph  was  one ...  of  the 
late  Mr.  Joseph  Marble.] 

"An  Hour  or  so  Later. 

"  (I  now  again  put  the  photographs  in  front  of  her.  She 
looked  at  them  as  if  for  the  first  time,  and  said)  'I  do  not 
know  the  photographs.'  (She  then  hesitated  long  over  the  right 
one,  saying  she  had  *  seen  him  somewhere,'  but  finished  up  by 
saying)  '  No,  I  do  not  know.' " 

With  these  recognitions  of  photographs,  and  Mrs.  Piper's 
of  G.  P.,  compare  Miss  Eawson's  vision  on  p.  646. 


CHAPTER  XL 
THE  THOMPSON-MYERS  CONTROL 

WE  now  come  to  the  manifestations  from  the  alleged  post- 
carnate  Frederic  Myers,  who  had  died  January  17,  1901.  I 
can  give  but  scant  specimens.  Myers  was  perhaps  the  leading 
English  spirit  in  the  S.  P.  R.,  and  everybody  interested  in 
Psychical  Research — the  skeptical  as  well  as  the  credulous — 
was  looking  with  great  interest  for  manifestations  professing 
to  come  from  that  spirit  in  a  postcarnate  state.  As  usual, 
they  are  a  terrible  jumble.  Myers  was  not  a  demonstrative 
person.  He  had  not,  like  Hodgson,  salient  characteristics  of 
manner  or  expression.  In  that  respect  the  communicating 
personality  resembles  him.  His  absorbing  interests  were  the 
S.  P.  R.,  poetry,  and  classical  literature.  In  those  respects, 
too,  the  personality  resembles  him.  He  was  an  intimate 
friend  of  Mrs.  Verrall :  so  the  resemblance  presented  through 
her  is  of  little  " evidential"  value.  The  same  is  true  of 
Mrs.  Thompson,  and,  in  a  less  degree,  of  Mrs.  Piper. 

Probably  the  appearance  of  the  Myers  control  has  been 
by  far  the  most  instructive  of  all  experiences  regarding  the 
influence  of  the  medium  upon  the  messages.  Whatever  the 
source  of  the  manifestations,  their  characteristics  depend 
largely  on  those  of  the  medium.  Mrs.  Verrall  is  a  classical 
scholar,  and  the  alleged  Myers  communications  through  her 
abound  in  classical  allusions,  and  occasionally  are  in  one  of 
the  classical  languages.  Mrs.  Holland  is  a  highly  educated 
lady  apparently  without  any  specialties,  and  she  reports  the 
everyday  cultivated  Myers.  Through  Mrs.  Thompson  he 
sometimes  speaks  direct,  and  sometimes  is  ostensibly  reported 
by  a  bright  child — Nelly,  and  then  shows  little  outside  the 
range  of  such  a  child's  comprehension.  It  is  noteworthy, 
however,  that  Nelly  often  reports  in  a  distinctly  parrot-like 
way  things  which  seem  to  be,  and  she  sometimes  says  are, 
given  to  her  by  older  (?)  persons.  Mrs.  Piper's  reports  of 

637 


638  The  Thompson-Myers  Control    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV. 

Myers  correspond  to  her  education,  and  have  few  of  the  special 
qualities  shown  through  Mrs.  Verrall. 

All  this  corresponds  with  the  guess  I  have  reiterated  that 
the  flow  of  the  cosmic  soul  through  each  of  us,  whether  it 
comes  as  a  fragment  of  inspiration  of  any  kind,  including 
dreams,  or  as  a  personality,  is  determined  by  the  personality 
through  which  it  flows.  Therefore  the  different  aspects  of 
an  alleged  control  presented  through  different  mediums  do 
not  appear  to  me  much  of  an  argument  against  the  genuine- 
ness of  the  control. 

Myers's  first  alleged  appearance  as  a  control  is  recorded  in 
some  extracts  from  the  "  Note-book  of  Miss  Rawson's  trance 
utterances,  as  recorded  by  the  Experimenter  in  charge  (who 
is  anonymous  but  known  to  me)  "  [Sir  Oliver  Lodge  who 
edits  the  report].  A  little  prefatory  matter  is  desirable. 

Messages  Obtained  Through  Miss  Rawson.     (Pr.XXIII,292f.) 

"  [O.  J.  L.]  Doubtless  a  great  number  of  communications  os- 
tensibly purporting  to  come  from  Mr.  Myers  have  been  received 

through  many  mediums For  the  most  part  I  regard  these 

as  valueless, — as  not  even  plausibly  lifelike But  on  the  spirit- 
istic hypothesis  it  must  be  admitted  as  likely  that  Miss  Rawson 
— a  lady  well  known  to  Mr.  Myers,  whose  hand  sometimes  writes 
while  she  remains  conscious — would  be  one  of  the  channels  of 
communication  employed  by  a  posthumous  Myers-like  activ- 
ity  

"Dec.  22,  1900.  Message  from  H.  S.[idgwick?  H.H.],  with 
F.  W.  H.  M.  himself  present,  less  than  a  month  before  bis  death 
(unimportant). 

"  Jan.  11,  1901.  Message  from  H.  S.  '  Tell  Myers  to  tell  my 
wife  not  to  put  in  the  whole  of  the  last  chapters  of  the  book  she 
is  finishing.  She  will  know  the  passages  she  feels  doubtful 
about.  Tell  him  it  is  really  I  who  am  here.' 

"  [O.  J.  L.]  This  was  spoken  with  hesitation  and  stuttering 
just  as  in  life;  Mast'  was  a  difficult  word  and  repeated  twice. 
[Cf.  the  stuttering  communications  through  Mrs.  Piper  and 
Mrs.  Thompson.  H.H.] . . .  [Myers  was  alive  then ;  he  died  on 
Jan.  17.] 

"  Jan.  23, 1901.  H.  S. : '  I  have  not  seen  my  dear  friend  Myers 
yet,  but  I  am  more  thankful  than  I  can  say  that  he  has  come 
here.  The  circle  above  has  been  waiting  for  him,  and  will  with 
great  joy  welcome  him.'  [O.  J.  L.]  (What  is  the  work  of  the 
circle  above?)  S. :  'It  is  to  attest  his  work,  to  make  a  school 
above  to  correspond  with  the  school  on  earth.  His  wonderful 


Ch.  XL]  Close  Mannerisms.  Gurney  Control's  Comments  639 

power  of  organization  will  not  be  lost  here.  The  world  is  not  so 
ready  as  he  thought.  We  shall  work  together  again.' 

"Jan.  26,  1901.  F.  Myers  (very  faint  voice)  :  'I  am  at  rest; 
my  body  is  laid  where  I  wished,  and  my  soul  is  free.  I  told  you 
if  possible  I  should  return.  Little  did  we  think  when,  not  a 
month  ago,  I  stood  beside  you,  telling  you  that  all  my  happiness 
was  on  the  other  side,  that  I  should  again  stand  beside  you, 
having  obtained  that  happiness.  I  thank  you  a  thousand  times 
for  making  [this]  meeting . . .  possible,  for  it  confirmed  what  I 
had  been  told,  which  I  was  never  quite  certain  of. ...  Later  I 
can  do  more.  I  am  supremely  happy.' " 

If  I  judged  Myers  rightly,  that  touch  about  his  body  is  as 
evidential  a  thing  as  I  know,  though  technically  not  eviden- 
tial at  all.  The  whole  passage  is  wonderfully  like  him. 

"Jan.  30,  1901.  F.  W.  H.  Myers:  '...I  shall  return  through 
Mrs.  Thompson ' 

"  The  control  said  later  that  F.  M.  could  not  speak  because  he 
was  not  inside  the  medium ;  he  pushed  her  along 

"  Feb.  9,  1901.  F.  W.  H.  M. :  <  Really,  really  this  is  delight- 
ful  1  never  thought  to  meet  you  here.  It  was  all  true — we 

had  not  deceived  ourselves.  Thank  you  for  giving  me  the  power 
to  come. . . .  They  don't  know  how  one  consciousness  can  merge 
into  another.'  [We  are  fast  finding  out.  H.H.] 

"  Mar.  17,  1901.  London.  Edmund  Gurney :  '  It  will  be  no 
advantage  to  my  friend  to  be  kept  down  for  communication 
with  the  groups  he  prepared.  What  we  want  for  him  now  is  to 
rise,  and  to  forget  the  earthly  things.  He  can't  help  any  more. 
His  life  was  given  to  it,  and  that  must  be  the  help.  He  was 

allowed  just  to  say  that  he  continued but  it  will  help  nobody 

that  he  should  be  called  back,  and  made  to  hover  near  the  earth. 
In  fact  it  will  only  make  him  earthbound.  So  tell  all  those  who 
tried  to  persuade  him  to  come, ...  to  receive  the  messages  that 
will  be  sent  now  and  again,  but  never  permanently.' 

"  Another  control :  '  The  mistake  Myers  made  was,  he  thought 
the  finite  could  control  the  infinite;  so  he  gathered  groups  and 
did  his  best  to  train  them  into  working  order,  to  carry  out  his 
design.  This  was  not  a  good  thing  to  do — mapping  out  work  to 
do  under  different  conditions  which  he  did  not  understand. . . . 
I  have  seen  Myers,  he  is  perfectly  happy;  he  finds  many  of  his 
theories  difficult  to  work ' 

" March  19.  'Myers  is  here,  but  will  not  be  able  to  speak 
himself.  I  shall  speak  for  him.  He  is  not  so  near,  and  not  so 
real  as  he  was.  This  means  that  he  is  soon  leaving  the  earth 
plane  and  going  to  rise  higher.  He  is  being  personated  right 
and  left.  He  is  being  used  as  a  peg  to  hang  innumerable  hats 
and  coats  on.  He  came  to  thank  you  and  to  say  that  as  you 


640  The  Thompson-Myers  Control    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

prayed  for  others  at  a  sitting  when  he  was  present,  so  he  hopes 
you  will  pray  for  him  now.' " 


Meanwhile  on  February  19th  he  had  appeared  at  a  sitting 
of  Sir  Oliver  and  Lady  Lodge  with  Mrs.  Thompson.  But 
these  appearances  were  not  reported  until  1909,  in  Pr. 
XXIII.  Sir  Oliver  says  (p.  200)  : 

" '  Myers '  was  represented  as  controlling  and  speaking  for 
part  of  the  time,  but  the  sittings  began  with  the  '  Nelly '  con- 
trol, and  when  the  Myers  control  is  not  manifestly  intended  to 
be  speaking,  the  words  may  be  taken  as  emanating  either  from 
Nelly  or  from  one  or  other  of  Mrs.  Thompson's  ordinary  con- 
trols  Nelly  began  talking  about  Myers,  about  whose  death  she 

had  been  for  some  time  incredulous.  Indeed  she  had  declared 
that  she  could  not  find  him  anywhere  and  did  not  believe  that 
he  had  come  over. . . .  But  now  she  was  just  beginning  to  admit 
the  fact." 

First  Sitting  with  Mrs.  Thompson,  February  19th,  1901. 
(Pr.XXIII,200f.) 

"  Notes  by  O.  J.  L.  and  M.  L. 

"  [Nelly.]  6.30  P.M.  '  I  was  allowed  to  go  on  his  birthday  to 
see  him.  They  will  have  plenty  of  work  to  do,  for  he  has 
promised  to  send  messages  to  74  people.  All  the  people  said  he 
was  dead,  but  I  did  not  believe  it ;  and  though  I  saw  him,  I  thought 
he  only  came  over  for  his  birthday  like  in  a  vision.  But  I  see  him 
now.  It  is  the  truth,  it  is  the  truth  (excitedly).  Let  us  see  if 
he  can  talk  sense.  He  was  talking  on  the  platform  with  you. 
It  was  at  a  station  by  a  race-course.  [I  had  met  him  at  Liver- 
pool; seen  him  off  from  the  landing  stage  to  America.  But  this 
is  unimportant.]  He  will  come  when  he  is  more  wakened  up — 
before  9  o'clock.  You  be  ready  at  25  minutes  to  9.  He  will  be 
awake  by  then.  He  would  rather  think  and  realize  for  a  little 
space  by  himself.  He  is  sensible,  for  a  spirit.  Before  you  came, 
mother  was  praying.  She  said  "  Come  and  tell  the  truth  for 
truth's  sake." . . .  (There  was  an  incipient  attempt  at  a  Myers 
control. . . .  Then  another  control  said)  [which  reads  like  Nelly. 
H.H.]  Do  you  know  he  feels  like  the  note-taker,  not  like  the 
spirit  that  has  to  speak.'. . .  (A  short  interval  of  apparent  dis- 
comfort, and  then  '  Myers '  purported  to  communicate)  '  Lodge, 
it  is  not  as  easy  as  I  thought  in  my  impatience.  Gurney  says 
I  am  getting  on  first  rate.  But  I  am  short  of  breath.  Oh, 
Lodge,  it  is  like  looking  at  a  misty  picture.  I  can  distinctly 
feel  I  ought  to  be  taking  a  note  of  it.  I  do  not  feel  as  if  I 
were  speaking,  but  it  is  best  to  record  it  all.  Tell  them  I  am 
more  stupid  than  some  of  those  I  had  to  deal  with.  Oh,  Lodge, 
what  is  it  when  I  see  you  ? . . .  Sidgwick  knows  I  am  with  him. 


Ch.  XL]    Nelly  and  Myers  both  Talk.    Veridicities         641 

He  said  that  he  saw  me  in  the  morning  of Oh,  dear,  it 

always  leaves  off  in  the  interesting  places.  I  can  hear  myself 
using  Rosa  Thompson's  voice.  I  want  to  convince  Sidgwick. 
He  says  "  Myers,  now  we  are  together,  you  convince  me  that  I 
am  sending  my  messages,  and  that  she  is  not  getting  them  from 
us  some  way."  [Professor  Sidgwick  had  also  always  been  skep- 
tical. H.H.]  He  still  wants  me  to  show  him It  is  funny  to 

feel  myself  talking  when  it  is  not  myself  talking.    It  is  not  my 

whole  self  talking.    When  I  am  awake  I  know  where  I  am ' 

O.  J.  L. :  '  Do  you  want  to  say  anything  about  the  Society  ? ' 
M.:  'What  Society?'  O.  J.  L.:  'You  remember  the  S.P.R.' 
M. :  '  Do  not  think  that  I  have  forgotten.  But  I  have.  I  have 
forgotten  just  now.  Let  me  think.  You  know,  Lodge,  when 
you  have  wanted  a  thing  thirty  or  forty  years,  and  at  last  got 
it,  you  do  not  think  of  much  else  beside.  Let  me  think,  and 
bit  by  bit  give  it  you.  I  used  to  get  better  evidence  when  I  let 
them  say  what  they  wanted  to  say.  They  [apparently  referring 
to  G.  P.,  Sidgwick,  etc.  H.H.]  tell  me  it  was  my  best  love  that 

Society.     They  will  help  me 1  was  confused  when  I  came 

here  . . .  before  I  knew  I  was  dead.  I  thought  I  had  lost  my  way 
in  a  strange  town,  and  I  groped  my  way  along  the  passage.  And 
even  when  I  saw  people  that  I  knew  were  dead,  I  thought  they 
were  only  visions.  I  have  not  seen  Tennyson  yet  by  the  way. 
I  am  going  to  be  bold  and  prophesy  already.  I  am  going  to  see 
you  in  April.  I  am  going  to  know  who  I  am  by  then.'  O.  J.  L. : 
'  And  will  you  then  read  what  you  wrote  in  the  envelope  ? ' 
M. : '  What  envelope  I— I  shall  be  told.  [See  p.  667.  H.H.]  Ernest 
does  not  mind  now.  What  do  they  mix  me  up  with  him  for? 
(Jocularly.)  Do  they  think  I  want  to  shine  in  his  glory  ?  [This 
was  evidently  a  reference  to  the  '  Times '  obituary  notice,  which 
I  had  written,  but  to  which  someone  in  the  '  Times '  office  ap- 
pended a  supplementary  statement  that  F.  W.  H.  M.  had  been  a 
joint  translator  of  Homer  together  with  Walter  Leaf  and  An- 
drew Lang ;  whereas  it  is  public  and  general  knowledge  that  this 
was  only  true  of  his  brother  Ernest.]  I  wanted  you  to  dp  for 
me  what  I  did  for  Sidgwick.'  [i.e.,  write  a  notice  in  the  Society's 
Proceedings.]  O.  J.  L. :  '  I  am  going  to;  and  so  are  Richet  and 
James.'  M. :  '  Ah,  Richet :  Yes,  Richet  knows  me ;  and  James 
will  do  it  well.'. . .  [Nelly  seems  to  control.  H.H.]  . .  /  He  says 
"  Brothers  I  have  none  excepting  Lodge."  He  wants  Lodge  to 
be  President  if  he  dare  spare  the  work;  but  he  says  "Do  not 
rope  yourself,  but  keep  the  group,  keep  the  group  together.  It 
will  soon  take  care  of  itself." '  O.  J.  L. :  '  We  are  trying  to  get 
Rayleigh.'  M. :  '  That  will  be  splendid,  but  that  is  too  good  to 
hope  for.  I  think  it  will  be  you.'  [Nelly  seems,  to  resume  con- 
trol. H.H.]  '  Thank  you  for  being  helpful  to  him.  You  have 
helped  him.'  [And  Myers  to  resume.  H.H.]  '  Man's  sympathy 
is  more  helpful  than  anything  else,  and  with  sympathy  every- 
thing slips  into  place.  Among  the  things  which  are  not  evi- 


642  The  Thompson-Myers  Control    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV. 

dential  you  get  things  which  are.  They  must  take  it  all. 
Those  that  seek  only  the  evidential  things  will  not  get  them.' 
[See  my  remarks  on  this,  p.  377.  H.H.]  [N.  ?] :  '  There  are  so 
many  he  would  like  to  help.  He  promised,  and  he  will  have  to. 
When  he  comes  in  April  he  will  remember  a  great  deal  more. 
He  will  remember  what  he  wrote  for  you  in  the  envelope.' " 

Anybody  who  thinks  the  fogginess  and  confusion  with 
which  the  Myers  communication  starts,  is  a  put-up  job  will 
waste  time  in  reading  farther.  Anybody  who  thinks  it  looks 
like  spiritism  will  perhaps  find  that  impression  deepened. 

"  [O.  J.  L.]  The  impersonation  at  this  sitting  was  really  a 

remarkably  vivid  and  lifelike  one Indeed,  it  would  be  difficult 

for  me  to  invent  an  experience  or  a  communication  more  reason- 
able and  natural  under  the  supposed  circumstances. . . .  The 
necessity  for  still  '  convincing  Sidgwick '  struck  us  as  amusingly 
characteristic;  so  did  several  other  little  traits,  such  as  that 
Myers  '  felt  as  if  he  ought  to  be  taking  notes ' — a  point  on  which 
F.  W.  H.  M.  was  always  specially  insistent.  And  as  to  his  tem- 
porary forgetfulness  of  the  existence  of  the  S.P.R.,  though  it  will 
probably  be  pounced  upon  as  an  absurdity  by  scoffers,  and  though 
it  was  of  course  quite  unexpected,  yet  even  that  struck  us  at  the 
time  as  humanly  natural  and  interesting.  And  indeed  so  it  does 
now.  (Compare  Rector's  statement  in  Pr.XXIII,148 :  '  Some 
things,  when  dissolution  takes  place,  go  so  completely  out  of 
one's  mind  that  it  takes  time  to  recall  those  incidents ' 

"  This  was  in  February,  1901.  A  further  communication  was 
promised  for  April,  but  no  opportunity  for  another  sitting  came 
until  May  8th,  and  then  it  came  quite  unexpectedly  and  without 
being  arranged  for." 

From  0.  J.  L.'s  Note-look,  9  May,  1901.    (Pr.XXIII,205f.) 

"After  dinner  Mrs.  Thompson  spontaneously  asked  Mrs. 
Lodge  to  take  her  up  into  my  study,  saying  as  she  went  upstairs 
that  she  felt  only  half  conscious,  and  as  if  she  were  going 
off 

"  The  sitting  was  dim  and  unsatisfactory . . .  and  at  the  end 
Mrs.  Thompson  was  much  agitated;  not  exhausted,  but  weepy; 
saying  how  much  she  disliked  the  idea  of  coming  back  to  con- 
sciousness and  leaving  the  conditions  in  which  she  had  just 
been.  She  said  she  had  no  recollection  of  what  had  been  said. 
. . .  She  also  told  me,  before  the  sitting  began,  that  of  late  she 
had  been  quite  unconscious  of  any  communications,  that  is  to 
say,  she  could  not  remember  their  contents,  but  that  she  was 
under  the  impression  that  during  the  last  month  or  so  she  had 
had  three  or  four  trances  when  no  one  was  there . . .  and  that 
once  she  found  herself  waking  on  the  floor  with  a  feeling  of 
great  satisfaction  and  contentment. 

"  She  further  said  that  the  sudden  cutting  off  of  all  attempts 


Ch.  XL]    Nelly's  "  Umbrella."    The  Marshall  Family    643 

at  communication  had  been  a  great  blow  to  her  and  seemed  to 
upset  her  physically  to  some  extent.  Also  that  she  had  been 
promised  something  for  her  birthday,  April  22nd, — evidently 
connecting  it  with  me.  '  Nelly '  had  indeed  promised  me  a  sit- 
ting in  April,  [as  recorded  in  last  sitting]  though  not  for  any 
particular  date.  But  it  seems  she  had  expected  it  on  the  22nd. 
However  I  had  no  sitting  in  April — nothing  till  this  May 
8th. 

"Additional  Note  written  on  11  May,  1901. 

"  The  above  was  dictated  before  copying  the  notes,  and  gives 
my  contemporary  impression  of  the  sitting;  but  on  reading  over 
the  notes  I  find  them  better  than  I  expected." 

Second  Sitting  with  Mrs.  Thompson,  May  8th,  1901. 
(Pr.XXHI,206f.) 

"  Notes  by  O.  J.  L.  and  M.  L. 

"  (Nelly  speaking.)  '  Professor  Lodge,  what  is  that  umbrella 
they  have  put  up  and  made  it  all  dark  ? . . .  (Further  indications 
followed  that  she  had  tried  to  communicate  but  found  it  dark.) 
[This  evidently  refers  to  the  suspension  of  sittings;  Mrs. 
Thompson,  for  some  private  reason,  having  declined  to  sit  for 
the  last  few  months,  and  only  doing  it  now  as  a  special  favor, 
and  because  she  felt  internally  urged  to  do  so.]  I  have  not  seen 
Mr.  Myers,  not  once;  I  have  not  seen  him  since  they  put  that 
umbrella  up.' 

"  [O.  J.  L.]  Nelly  then  appealed  to  me  to ...  receive  her 
statements  sympathetically  and  not  with  an  undercurrent  of  sus- 
picion, explaining  that  such  undercurrent  befogged  her. ...  I 
asked  her  not  to  regard  me  as  in  any  way  hostile,  and  she  said 
'  No,  I  do  not  feel  like  that  to  any  of  the  Marshall  family.' 
My  grandmother  and  my  wife's  father  were  both  Marshalls, 
though  no  relation  whatever  to  each  other,  nor  to  Frederic 
Myers's  relations  of  that  name Then  followed  some  convul- 
sive movements  and  a  sort  of  internal  colloquy  of  which  only 
fragments  were  audible.  They  appeared  however  to  indicate  a 
confused  conversation  between  Nelly  and  Mr.  Myers,  Nelly  ask- 
ing him  to  come  in,  and  Mr.  Myers  saying  that  he  had  been 
told  not, — that  he  had  understood  the  communications  were  sus- 
pended for  a  time.  But  this  was  only  an  impression  gathered 
from  the  confused  mutterings.  A  further  impression  was  that 
Mr.  Myers  mistrusted  the  presence  of  a  third  person  and  was 
being  reassured  by  Nelly  that  it  was  only  Mrs.  Lodge. 

"  N. :  '  It's  only  Mrs.  Lodge  whom  you  love.'  M. :  '  No  I  don't 
love  her.'  N. :  '  It's  only  Lodge's  wife,  who  will  help.'  M. : 
'  More  than  I  anticipated  much  more.' 

"  With  other  barely  intelligible  fragments  of  internal  colloquy." 


644  The  Thompson-Myers  Control    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IY 

Are  the  above  conversations  mere  telepathy  or  the  "cun- 
ning "  of  a  secondary  personality  ?  How  like  a  dream  it  all  ij ! 

"  [O.  J.  L.]  Ultimately  the  conversation  with  me  began  again 
but  in  a  very  halting  and  indistinct  fashion,  no  marked  per- 
sonality at  all,  somewhat  as  if  Nelly  were  half  giving  messages 
and  half  personating  Mr.  Myers,  and  doing  both  badly  and  with 
difficulty.  The  following  however  are  my  notes  of  what  was 
said : — 

"  N. :  '  Mr.  Myers  is  worrying  about  something  connected  with 
Mr.  Sidgwick,  something  that  was  not  understood  or  that  was 
not  put  down.  He  [H.  S.]  had  some  Jews  in  College  and  he 
could  not  do  it  on  a  Saturday. . . .'  M. :  '  I  thought  I  knew  better 
than  be  such  a  miserable  failure.  I  thought  I  would  come  and 
read  it.  [Apparently  or  possibly  meaning  the  sealed  letter.] 
[Cf.  p.  667.  H.H.]  I  wished  you  would  all  write  to  me.  I  was 
so  far  away.  I  pined  to  hear  from  you  all.  My  philosophy  did 
not  help  me  much.  I  feel  just  as  lonely.  Lodge,  it  is  just  as 
they  say,  you  grope  in  fog  and  darkness ' 

"  [O.  J.  L.]  Further  indications  that  the  conditions  under 
which  he  was  were  not  altogether  to  his  liking,  not  at  least  when 
trying  to  communicate;  and  also  further  statements  that  he 
could  not  very  clearly  realize  the  conditions  on  that  side  when 
he  was  trying  to  communicate,  and  that  now  he  was  wishful  to 
pass  on  and  up  and  not  stay  to  redeem  his  promises.  [And  yet 
to  Miss  Rawson  he  had  pronounced  himself  "  supremely  happy." 
H.H.] 

"  M. :  '  What  are  you  doing  in  this  place  ?  [Apparently  mean- 
ing strange  and  unfamiliar  surroundings,  the  temporary  house 
in  Birmingham  which  I  had  taken,  and  which  he  had  never 
seen.]  ...  I  seemed  to  be  taken  from  all  my  pain  and  suffering 
into  light.  I  hardly  like  to  tell  you  what  I  wanted  to  do,  it 
seems  so  selfish  now,  but  I  wanted  to  go  and  talk  to  Tennyson, 
whom  I  idolized.  But  I  was  told  that  I  must  suffer  for  my 
promises  [i.e.,  to  communicate  before  leaving  the  earth  neigh- 
borhood? H.H.],  and  then  I  could  have  what  I  wanted.  I  wish 
I  had  not  been  taken  so  far:  it  makes  it  difficult  to  communi- 
cate.' 

"  [O.  J.  L.]  Then — referring,  as  I  thought  at  the  time,  to 
Mrs.  Thompson's  trance  which  she  had  told  me  of,  when  she 
woke  up  and  found  herself  on  the  floor 

"  M.. : '  I  did  not  throw  her  on  the  floor.  It  was  Talbot— Talbot 
Forbes.  It  was  not  I.  I  wanted  her  to  know  I  was  there,  but 
Talbot  only  wanted  her  to  tell  his  Mother.  [These  good  people 
will  appear  in  our  treatment  of  Cross-Correspondences.  H.H.] 
Why  does  she  [meaning  apparently  the  Medium]  pray  to  me  and 
beg  me  to  come,  when  she  knows  I  want  to  be  cleansed  from 
earth  first  ? . . .  They  keep  on  calling  me.  I  am  wanted  every- 
where. . . .  But  I  want  to  concentrate  in  a  few  places,  or  in  one 


Ch.  XL]   Myers  Talks  to  a  Stick.    Nelly  and  Van  Eeden    645 

place,  and  not  to  be  split  up.  Do  appeal  to  them  not  to  break 
me  up  so,  and  leave  me  not  clear  in  one  spot.  I  am  only  one 
now,  and  the  noise  of  you  all  calling  makes  me  feel  I  cannot. 
Someone  is  calling  me  now.  What  did  Miss  Edmunds  want 
with  me?  On  Friday  she  called.  [Were  all  those  dramatic 
touches  telepathy  ?  H.H.]  . . .  Tell  Richet  I  shall  meet  him  in 
Rome.  I  shall  speak  to  him  in  Rome  on  the  third  day  of  the 
Congress.  I  heard  them  describing  how  I  died,  and  I  could 
not  stop  them.  [Referring  apparently  to  some  unpublished 
Piper  sittings  in  America.]  . . .  Moses — Stainton  Moses.  They 
mixed  the  deaths  up — his  death  and  my  death.  It  applies  to 
him  and  not  to  me.  [Apparently  referring  to  some  unpublished 
and  to  me  unknown  account  of  the  death-bed.]  *. . .  I  have  gone 
back  from  where  I  was  that  night.  I  could  hear  what  she  (the 
Medium)  was  saying,  and  keep  a  check  on  it,  but  now  I  cannot 
hear  what  is  being  said:  I  can  only  think  the  things,  and  false 
things  may  creep  in  without  my  knowing  it.  Have  you  ten  days 
work  in  a  week?. . .'  [Nelly?]  :  '  Do  you  not  think,  Mrs.  Lodge, 
he  has  ten  days  work  a  week? 

"  [Then  an  abrupt  change.  H.H.]  '  Professor  Lodge,  do  you 
know  I  have  seen  such  a  funny  thing.  I  have  seen  Mr.  Myers 
talking  as  if  to  a  stick  right  through  Mother's  body ;  and  while  he 
was  talking  to  it  someone  came  up  and  touched  it,  and  it  all  got 
confused,  and  he  could  not  think  why  it  went  funny.  [How 
like  a  dream !  H.H.]  ...  I  wish  Mother  was  not  so  wicked ;  be- 
cause when  Mr.  Myers  wants  to  go  to  sleep  and  be  quiet,  Mother 
will  not  let  him.  She  will  call  him. . . .  When  he  wants  to  go  to 
sleep  and  be  quiet  she  keeps  him  back.  She  must  not  do  it. 
[Remember  the  prayer  on  p.  640?  H.H.]  [I  promised  to  give  her 
the  message;  which  I  did  after  the  trance,  and  she  then  ad- 
mitted that  she  thought  of  him  frequently  and  urgently,  but  that 
she  would  try  to  refrain.]  Do  you  know  last  Monday  when  I 
went  to  Dr.  van  Eeden's  house ;  he  called  for  me  and  we  went. 
Mr.  Myers  came  and  told  me  he  was  calling.  We  both  went, 
yes,  on  Monday.  He  has  got  an  impression  that  Mr.  Myers 
helped  him  to  call  me.  Mr.  Myers  said  "  Let  us  go  and  see  '  old 
Whiskers'  in  his  little  bed  and  laugh  at  him."  He  is  much 
more  lively  when  he  is  talking  to  me,  and  much  more  wakened 
up  than  when  he  is  talking  down  that  stick.  [Cf.  Proc.  S.P.R. 
Vol.  18,  p.  201.]  But  he  does  seem  worried,  he  gets  no  rest. 

Someone  has  called  him  in  a  glass  bottle — yes,  a  crystal He 

thinks  it  will  help  a  great  deal  if  he  can  understand  how  the 
cheating  things  that  are  not  cheats  are  done.  It  is  not  cheating, 
and  yet  it  is  not  him  doing  it. ...  There  was  no  stick  that  went 
through  anyone's  body  there.  He  says  that  others  tell  him  it 
was  just  the  same  with  them.  Sometimes  when  he  thought  they 

*  Probably  this  and  Sir  Oliver's  remark  a  couple  of  lines  earlier,  refer 
to  a  Piper-Myers  account  of  his  death,  which,  I  am  told,  was  untrue. 
II.  H. 


646  The  Thompson-Myers  Control    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

were  communicating  they  were  not,  and  yet  they  knew  about  it. 
He  says  he  is  finding  out  how  honest  non-phenomena  are  to  be 
accounted  for.  Apparently  dishonest  phenomena  are  phenomena 
of  extreme  [interest?]  apart  from  the  spirit  which  purports  to 
be  communicating.'  [This  last  part  was  slowly  recited  by  Nelly, 
like  a  lesson  not  understood  by  her.]  " 

Perhaps  several  suspiciously  precocious  features  in  Miss 
Nelly's  vocabulary  and  turns  of  expression,  can  properly  be 
accounted  for  by  following  up  this  hint. 

Further  Notes  on  the  Thompson-Myers  Sittings. 
(Pr.XXIH,214.) 

[L.]  "  The  rather  strikingly  worded  complaints  and  requests 
recorded  above  (Pr.XXIII,210),  as  received  through  Mrs.  Thomp- 
son, '  They  keep  on  calling  me.  I  am  wanted  everywhere Do 

appeal  to  them  not  to  break  me  up  so How  easy  to  promise 

and  how  difficult  to  fulfil.  Make  one  appeal  to  them  to  let  me 
be  at  rest  for  two  or  three  weeks/  also  correspond  with  something 
to  the  same  effect  independently  received  through  Miss  Rawson 
three  months  earlier ;  and  constitute  what  may  be  fairly  consid- 
ered another  cross-correspondence.  This  message,  received  on 
Feb.  7th,  1901,  purported  to  come  from  Edmund  Gurney,  who 
was  represented  as  speaking  through  Miss  Rawson  as  follows 
(Pr.XXin,223)  : 

"  While  waiting  for  a  friend  to  come  in  to  begin  the  sitting, 
Miss  Rawson  suggested  that  we  should  sit  in  the  dark  and  she 
would  perhaps  see  something.  The  lamp  was  turned  down  and 
she  at  once  saw  a  bright  mist  in  corner  of  room,  out  of  which 
gradually  emerged  the  face  of  a  tall  man  with  mustache,  blue 
tie,  black  coat:  he  advanced  towards  her  waving  his  hand  and 
evidently  most  anxious  to  communicate.  She  repeated  the  alpha- 
bet and  he  waved  his  hand  at  the  right  letter.  She  spelt  out 
Edmund  Gurney. 

"  The  friend  then  came  in  and  the  sitting  began. 

"  E.  G.  at  once  controlled  the  medium.  '  I  have  come  to  warn 
you  for  my  friend  to  implore  you  not  to  let  them  call  him.  He 
gets  no  rest  day  or  night.  At  every  sitting  "  Call  Myers !  Bring 
Myers,"  there's  not  a  place  in  England  where  they  don't  ask  for 
him;  it  disturbs  him,  it  takes  away  his  rest.  For  God's  sake 
don't  call  him.  It  is  all  right  for  him  to  come  of  his  own 
accord. . . .  His  heart  is  tender  and  when  he  hears  them  call,  he 
tries  to  come.  If  they  leave  him  to  rest,  in  time  he'll  come  back 
again  more  strong,  but  if  they  call  and  call  it  will  take  away 
the  power  and  help  and  everything  else.' " 

(Pr.XXIII,216) :  "  [L.]  Those  who  interpret  the  parables  in 
such  a  way  as  to  imagine  that  dignified  idleness  is  the  occupa- 
tion of  eternity . . .  without  any  call  for  future  work  and  self- 
sacrifice  . . .  will  probably  some  day  find  themselves  mistaken." 


CHAPTER  XLI 
HETEROMATIC  SCRIPT:  MRS.  HOLLAND 

WE  will  soon  find  Myers  again  in  the  heteromatic  writing 
of  "  Mrs.  Holland."  This  name  is  assumed  for  an  English 
lady  resident  in  India  whose  psychic  interests  are  so  dis- 
approved by  her  family  that  she  does  not  wish  her  real  name 
published.  Pr.  XXI,  166-391,  contains  an  account  by  Miss 
Alice  Johnson  of  her  experiences. 

In  1893  Mrs.  Holland  began  crystal-gazing  and  hetero- 
matic writing.  Ten  years  later  she  read  Myers'  Human 
Personality,  and  her  interest  in  her  psychic  experiences  was 
greatly  stimulated.  She  wrote  to  Miss  Johnson  (Pr.  XXI, 


"  September  14M,  1903. 

"  [Ten]  years  ago  I  first  tried  automatic  writing,  having  seen 
a  reference  to  it  in,  I  think,  the  Review  of  Reviews.  My  hand 
began  to  form  words  almost  immediately,  but  only  short  sen- 
tences of  an  uninteresting  kind,  and  the  questions  I  asked  were 
not  answered. 

"  The  next  time  I  tried  (these  attempts  were  always  made 
when  I  was  alone),  verses  were  written,  and  since  then,  though 
I  have  often  discontinued  the  practice  for  months  and  years, 
and  tried  to  give  it  up  altogether,  any  automatic  writing  that 
comes  to  me  is  nearly  aways  in  verse,  headed  — 

"  '  Believe  in  what  thou  canst  not  see, 
Until  the  vision  come  to  thee.' 

"  The  verses,  though  often  childishly  simple  in  wording  and 
jingling  in  rhyme,  are  rarely  trivial  in  subject.  Their  striking 
feature  is  the  rapidity  with  which  they  come.  I  once  wrote 
down  fourteen  poems  in  little  over  an  hour,  another  time  ten, 
and  seven  or  eight  are  quite  a  common  number  to  come  at  one 
time.  When  I  write  original  verse  I  do  so  slowly  and  carefully, 
with  frequent  erasures:  automatic  verse  is  always  as  if  swiftly 
dictated  and  there  are  never  any  erasures.  I  am  always  fully 
conscious,  but  my  hand  moves  so  rapidly  that  I  seldom  know 
what  words  it  is  forming. 

"  ......  I  copy  one  set  of  verses  ----  1  wrote  it  down  as  quickly 

647 


648       Heteromatic  Script:  Mrs.  Holland    [Bk.  II,  Pt  IV 

as  it  was  possible  for  my  hand  to  move,  and  was  surprised 
afterwards  to  find  that  it  had  a  definite  form  of  its  own.  It  is 
exactly  as  it  came  to  me,  not '  polished '  or  altered  in  the  least. 

" '  I  whom  he  loved,  am  a  ghost, 

Wandering  weary  and  lost. 
I  dare  not  dawn  on  his  sight, 
(Windblown  weary  and  white) 
He  would  shudder  in  hopeless  fright, 

He  who  loved  me  the  best. 
I  shun  the  paths  he  will  go, 

Because  I  should  frighten  him  so. 
(Weary  and  lacking  rest). 

'  I  whom  he  loved  am  a  shade, 

Making  mortals  afraid, 
Yet  all  that  was  vile  in  me, 
The  garb  of  mortality, 
My  body  that  used  to  be, 

Is  mouldering  out  of  sight. 
I  am  but  a  waiting  soul, 

Pain-purified,  seeking  its  goal, 
Why  should  he  dread  the  sight? 

" '  If  I  showed  him  my  white  bones 

Under  the  churchyard  stones, 
Or  the  creatures  that  creep  and  rest 
On  what  was  once  my  breast, 
He  who  loved  me  the  best 

Would  have  good  cause  for  fright. 
But  my  face  is  only  pale, 

My  form  like  a  windblown  veil, 
Why  should  he  dread  the  sight? 

u  f  Should  I  beat  on  the  window  pane, 
He  would  think  it  the  wind  and  rain, 

If  he  saw  my  pale  face  gleam 

He  would  deem  it  a  stray  moonbeam 

Or  the  waft  of  a  passing  dream. 
No  thought  for  the  lonely  dead, 

Buried  away  out  of  sight. 

And  I  go  from  him  veiling  my  head, 

Windblown  weary  and  white.' 

(1896) 

" Automatic  verses  do  not  deal  much  with  facts,  but 

once  when  I  was  staying  in  Italy,  in  an  old  palazzo  I  had  never 
before  seen,  the  day  after  my  arrival,  and  before  I  had  been  into 
the  garden,  the  impulse  to  write  came  on  me,  and  I  yielded  to  it, 
without  however  ceasing  to  take  part  in  the  conversation  of  two 


Ch.  XLI]        Letters  to  New  Acquaintances  649 

friends  who  were  with  me.  One  of  them,  who  knew  about  my 
automatic  writing,  asked  me  to  read  what  had  come  to  me.  I 
did  so: — 

" '  Under  the  orange  tree 

Who  is  it  lies? 
Baby  hair  that  is  flaxen  fair, 

Shines  when  the  dew  on  the  grass  is  wet, 
Under  the  iris  and  violet. 

'Neath  the  orange  tree 
Where  the  dead  leaves  be, 

Look  at  the  dead  child's  eyes ! '  (1901) 

" '  This  is  very  curious,'  said  my  friend,  '  there  is  a  tradition 
that  a  child  is  buried  in  the  garden  here,  but  I  know  you  have 
never  heard  it.' " 

These  heteromatic  poems  appear  to  be  but  extreme  illus- 
trations of  the  "inspiration"  that  poets  have  generally 
claimed  for  themselves.  The  author's  modest  deprecations 
seem  to  me  unjust  to  her  own. 

Mrs.  Holland  continues  (Pr.  XXI,  173f.)  : 

"I  have  said  that  automatic  verses  do  not  deal  much  with 
facts,  but  once,  when  I  was  sensitive  after  illness,  I  experienced 
a  new  form  of  automatic  writing,  in  the  shape  of  letters  which 
my  hand  insisted  on  writing  to  a  newly-made  acquaintance. 

"The  first  of  these  letters  began  with  a  pet  name  I  did  not 
know,  and  was  signed  with  the  full  name  of  someone  I  had  never 
heard  of,  and  who  I  afterwards  learnt  had  been  dead  some  years. 
It  was  clearly  impressed  upon  me  for  whom  the  letter  was  in- 
tended, but  thinking  it  due  to  some  unhealthy  fancy  of  my  own, 
I  destroyed  it.  Having  done  so  I  was  punished  by  an  agonizing 
headache,  and  the  letter  was  repeated,  till  in  self-defense  I  sent 
it  and  the  succeeding  ones  to  their  destination. 

"  They  generally  came  when  I  was  trying  to  write  ordinary 
letters ;  I  never  '  sat  for  them '  or  encouraged  them  in  any  way. 
I  never  read  them  over,  feeling  they  were  not  meant  for  me, 
and  the  recipient,  beyond  telling  me  they  referred  to  matters 
known  only  to  this  one  person  who  was  dead,  and  that  the  writ- 
ing of  them,  especially  the  signature,  bore  a  marked  resemblance 
to  that  person's  writing,  preferred  not  to  discuss  the  subject.  I 
have  never  seen  the  writing  in  question. 

"  As  I  regained  perfect  health  I  tried  to  free  myself  from  this 
influence,  for  it  used  to  give  me  cruel  headaches  and  was  very 

exhausting If  my  hand  was  not  actively  employed  at  these 

times  it  would  clench  itself,  and  make  the  motion  of  writing  in 
the  air. 

"  Since  then  I  have  felt  on  three  other  occasions  that  some 


650       Eeteromatic  Script:  Mrs.  Holland    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

unseen  but  very  present  personality  was  striving  to  transmit  a 
message  through  me  to  a  well-beloved.  In  every  case  the  com- 
munication was  utterly  unsought  by  me,  and  came  as  a  complete 
surprise  to  the  recipient,  who  was  always  a  recent  acquaintance, 
never  one  of  my  friends.  My  attention  was  always  enforced, 
as  it  were,  by  a  severe  pain  in  the  head,  which  vanished  when  I 

had  delivered  the  message 

"  I  have  never  been  in  surroundings  that  encouraged  this  in- 
terest, I  have  never  been  mesmerized,  I  have  never  attended  a 
seance,  for  the  idea  of  anything  connected  with  paid  medium- 
ship  is  peculiarly  disagreeable  to  me.  I  only  discovered  by  acci- 
dent, five  years  ago,  that  I  have  the  clairvoyant  faculty." 

Miss  Johnson  comments  (Pr.  XXI,  175-6)  : 

"  There  is  no  means  of  ascertaining  to  what  extent  these  early 
writings  were  veridical " 

But  with  only  a  decent  confidence  in  the  honesty  of  the 
people  concerned,  there  is  a  very  astounding  degree  of  veridic- 
ity  in  the  facts  that  the  first  letters  referred  to  matters 
known  only  to  this  one  person  who  was  dead,  and  that  the 
writing  of  them,  especially  the  signature,  bore  a  marked  re- 
semblance to  that  person's  writing.  While  (see  below)  we  are 
not  permitted  to  see  anything  evidential  that  may  be  contained 
in  these  communications  to  an  absent  "  sitter  "  (if  you  will 
tolerate  the  hibernicism),  they  are,  at  least  to  non-technical 
me,  among  the  most  evidential  things  I  have  met.  They  are 
a  hard  blow  to  the  telepathic  hypothesis,  and  the  more  I  have 
studied  the  records,  the  more  the  teloteropathic  hypothesis 
has  been  losing  strength  with  me. 

Miss  Johnson  continues : 

"  From  an  evidential  point  of  viey:,  the  interest  and  value  of 
Mrs.  Holland's  script  depends  to  a  great  extent,  as  will  be  seen 
under  Cross  Correspondence  [Chapter  XL VII.  H.H.],  on  the  in- 
dications of  telepathy  manifested — at  first  quite  unexpectedly — 
between  herself  and  Mrs.  Verrall 

"  Though  many  of  the  sensations  and  experiences  connected 
with  the  script  are  probably  subjective  in  origin,  it  may  be  that 
certain  idiosyncrasies  are  correlated  with  veridical  phenom- 
ena  

"  From  the  psychical  point  of  view,  her  first  reading  of  Human 
Personality  formed  an  epoch  in  Mrs.  Holland's  life,  and  thence- 
forth her  automatic  writing  was  colored  largely  by  the  influence 
of  that  book.  She  had  not  known  Mr.  Myers  during  his  life- 
time, nor  could  she  remember  afterwards  that  she  had  even 
heard  his  name  before  she  read  the  book.  But  her  own  ex- 


Ch.  XLI]     Scripts  of  Various  Writers.    Myers  651 

periences  and  her  own  temperament  had  specially  prepared  her 
for  the  reception  of  it,  and  the  personality  of  the  author  strongly 
appealed  to  her. 

"  Under  these  circumstances  it  was  not  only  natural  but  almost 
inevitable  that  a  great  part  of  her  writing  should  now  purport  to 
be  inspired  by  him,  or — to  a  less  extent — by  the  two  friends  to 
whom  his  book  is  dedicated,  Mr.  Gurney  and  Dr.  Sidgwick.  [It 
was  not  published  until  after  the  deaths  of  all  three.  H.H.]  " 

In  Mrs.  Holland's  script,  claims  of  individuality  are  very 
much  the  rule,  and  each  control  has  his  own  handwriting 
though  it  does  not  generally  correspond  with,  the  handwriting 
of  the  alleged  controls  before  bodily  death. 

In  Stainton  Moses'  automatic  script,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, each  control  was  declared  to  have  had  his  own  hand- 
writing— in  some  cases  beautiful,  and  in  one  case  where  the 
facts  were  known,  uniform  with  the  writing  of  the  alleged 
control  before  death.  But  in  the  other  cases  there  was  not 
extant  any  writing  made  by  the  controls  in  their  lifetime, 
supposing  them  ever  to  have  lived. 

In  Mrs.  Piper's  script,  individualities  are  constantly  as- 
serted, though  the  handwriting  is  generally  a  scrawl  of  letters 
half  an  inch  high,  unlike  any  normal  handwriting. 

On  September  16,  1903,  nearly  three  years  after  Myers' 
death,  and  his  first  alleged  appearance  through  Mrs.  Thomp- 
son, was  apparently  the  first  appearance  of  a  Myers  control 
through  Mrs.  Holland.  Mrs.  Holland's  manifestation  was, 
says  Miss  Johnson  (Pr.  XXI,  177-8), 

"  a  curious  example  of  the  efforts  that  seem  so  often  to  be  made 
by  the  subliminal  self  to  keep  the  supraliminal  in  ignorance — 
at  least  for  the  time  being — of  the  sense  of  what  is  being  pro- 
duced." 

That  depends  upon  how  you  look  at  it.  Myers,  as  his  con- 
trol intimates  later,  would  have  called  it  the  effort  of  the 
control  to  speak,  for  evidential  purposes,  in  cryptic  ways  that 
the  heteromatist's  individual  subliminal  never  would  have 
used. 

"  It  is  written  on  two  sides  of  a  half-sheet  of  paper;  the  first 
side  begins  with  the  initial  '  F.,'  and  the  second  ends  with  the 
initial '  M.' ;  the  whole  passage  is  divided  into  four  short  sections, 
the  first  three  ending  respectively  in  '  17/,'  VI '  and  '/Ol.'  Jan- 
uary 17th,  1901,  was  the  date  of  Mr.  Myers'  death,  mentioned 


652       Heteromatic  Script:  Mrs.  Holland    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

in  Human  Personality;  but  the  simple  device  of  separating  these 
initials  and  items  from  one  another  was  completely  effective  in 
its  apparent  object.  I  read  the  passage  a  good  many  times  before 
I  saw  what  they  meant  and  I  found  that  the  meaning  had  en- 
tirely escaped  Mrs.  Holland's  notice." 

This  refers  to  the  script  containing  the  notorious  stanza 
(Pr.  XXI,  192)  which  excited  the  derision  of  the  Philistine 
world  of  both  continents,  and  disturbed  not  a  small  portion  of 
the  enlightened  world: 

"  Friend  while  on  earth  with  knowledge  slight 
I  had  the  living  power  to  write 
Death  tutored  now  in  things  of  might 
I  yearn  to  you  and  cannot  write." 
17 

Why  it  excited  so  much  adverse  comment  I  cannot  clearly 
make  out:  for  what  is  the  stanza  but  a  demonstration  of 
what  it  claims,  "I  ...  cannot  write,"  unless  it  be  also  a 
demonstration  that  the  tired  shade,  or  befogged  subliminal, 
or  impotent  group  of  world-soul  elements,  or  what  you  please, 
could  not  criticise  either.  But  the  more  I  read  and  ponder,  the 
more  puzzled  I  am  over  the  general  reluctance,  in  which  I 
have  my  share,  to  let  the  "  what  you  please  "  contain  the  essen- 
tial elements  of  intelligent  individual  personality.  Of  course 
we  apply  the  term  to  a  good  many  things,  and  let  it  connote 
a  good  many  things.  One  thing,  however,  the  most  influ- 
ential recent  writer,  James,  seems  to  regard  as  essential  to, 
and  to  a  great  extent  sufficient  for,  the  notion  of  personality 
— namely,  the  "  stream  of  consciousness,"  and  surely  the  poor 
ghost,  or  echo,  or  whatever  it  is,  seems  at  least  that.  The 
main  question  is  whether  the  "that"  is  not  Mrs.  Holland 
herself.  I'm  tempted  to  ask  what  difference  it  makes  if  it 
is,  provided  it  is  Myers  too. 

I  said  "poor  ghost"  with  reference  to  this  single  mani- 
festation. He,  or  whatever  it  is,  often  claims  happiness  and 
emancipation. 

Here  is  the  rest  of  that  script  (Pr.  XXI,  192-3),  with  the 
rest  of  the  date  alluded  to  by  Miss  Johnson,  17/1/01,  be- 
tween the  sections.  The  17  is  at  the  end  of  the  section  given 
above.  Of  course  Mrs.  Holland's  "  subliminal  self  "  fixed  the 
figures  that  way !  (  ?)  What  traditional  faiths  people  will  swal- 


Ch.  XLI]        Myers'  Strangely  Dated  Script  653 

low — those  opposing  supernaturalism  as  easily  as  those  pro- 
fessing it !  Isn't  it  about  time  to  let  brother  Du  Prel  and  his 
subliminal  self  go,  along  with  alchemy  and  astrology  ? 

"It  may  be  that  those  who  die  suddenly  suffer  no  prolonged 
obscuration  of  consciousness  but  for  my  own  experience  the  un- 
consciousness was  exceedingly  prolonged. 

|1 

"  The  reality  is  infinitely  more  wonderful  than  our  most  dar- 
ing conjectures.  Indeed  no  conjecture  can  be  sufficiently  daring. 

|01 

"  But  this  is  like  the  first  stumbling  attempts  at  expression  in 
an  unknown  language  imperfectly  explained  so  far  away  so  very 
far  away  and  yet  longing  and  understanding  potentialities  of 
nearness." 

M 

Now  as  to  the  above  date.  On  the  hypothesis  of  the  strictly 
individual  subliminal  self — as  something  in  the  agent  or 
medium  that  enacts  or  apes  reflections  telepathically  cast  upon 
the  soul  as  upon  a  mirror,  by  its  own  recollections  or  by  other 
minds,  why  should  said  self  not  only  make  dramas  for  these 
reflected  personalities  to  act  in — make  a  mental  portrait  ap- 
propriately talk  and  argue,  rejoice  and  mourn,  and  get  mad 
and  break  things;  but  also  try  to  mystify  and  mislead  the 
supraliminal  consciousness  whose  annexed  subliminal  con- 
sciousness mirrors  it?  Doesn't  it  force  the  note  harder  to 
make  a  mere  piecemeal  reflection  do  all  this,  than  to  accept 
its  being  done  by  a  real  personality  ? 

And  does  this  probability  not  increase  when  that  person- 
ality professes  motives  for  hiding  its  utterances  in  enigmas, 
because  so  doing  gives  more  evidence  of  purpose  and  ingenuity 
than  straightforward  utterance  might?  That  probability  is 
not  conclusive :  there  is  too  much  to  be  explained  on  the  other 
side ;  but  is  it  not  evidence  of  a  purposeful  personality  rather 
than  of  a  telepathic  reflection  ? 

The  script  I  have  just  quoted,  Miss  Johnson  does  not 
give  until  fifteen  pages  later  than  her  comment  on  it,  and 
then  after  numerous  extracts  that  appear  chronologically  later 
in  the  entire  script,  and  that  would  have  had  light  thrown 
upon  them  by  this  specimen  had  it  been  placed  in  its  chrono- 
logical position.  This  seems  bad  editing,  but  it  is  not  neces- 
sarily so,  and  I  allude  to  it  only  for  the  sake  of  illustrating 


654       Heteromatic  Script:  Mrs.  Holland    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

one  of  the  difficulties  which  make  handling  this  sort  of 
matter  a  fearful  task  to  the  editor  and  even  to  the  reader. 
This  special  difficulty  arises  from  the  complexity  and  incoher- 
ence of  the  matter,  so  that  often  the  best  way  to  handle  it 
is  to  follow  a  topic  right  through,  and  then  begin  again  with 
another  topic  and  do  the  same.  Yet  the  result  is  that  the 
first  topic  reaches  the  chronological  end  before  the  second 
one  reaches  the  chronological  beginning. 

Miss  Johnson  continues  (Pr.  XXI,  178)  from  the  point 
to  where  I  transposed  the  piece  with  the  Myers  stanza : 

"  Two  days  later  came : '  1873.  30  years  ago.  CmrdeAbig 
Youth.'  I  read  the  first  five  enigmatic  letters  as  '  Comrade ' 
with  two  vowels  left  out ;  the  other  four,  '  A  b  i  g,'  seemed  mean- 
ingless. Long  afterwards  in  glancing  through  Human  Person- 
ality (Vol.  I.,  p.  7),  I  came  on  this  sentence:  '  In  about  1873 . . . 
it  became  the  conviction  of  a  small  group  of  Cambridge  friends 

that  the  deep  questions  thus  at  issue  must  be  fought  out '  It 

was  then  clear  that  the  nine  mysterious  letters  were  merely  an 
anagram  for  '  Cambridge.'  Mrs.  Holland  was  quite  unaware  of 
their  meaning  till  I  pointed  it  out  to  her. 

" The  same  writing  goes  on :  'It  has  been  a  long  work — but 
the  work  is  not  nearly  over  yet —  It  has  barely  begun —  Go  on 
with  it — go  on —  We  were  the  torch  bearers — follow  after  us — 
The  flame  burns  more  steadily  now.  E.  G.  1888.' 

"  The  year  1888  was  the  date  of  Mr.  Gurney's  death,  a  fact 
also  stated  in  Human  Personality" 

Note  that  the  control  seems  to  use  it  rather  as  a  birth-date 
— into  the  alleged  new  life.  Note  also  the  strong  resemblance 
between  this  Gurney  and  the  Piper  Gurney  of  the  Lodge  sit- 
tings ante. 

"  [ J.]  Here,  and  in  other  similar  passages,  the  reference  ia 
unmistakable,  and  there  soon  begins  to  be  apparent  a  struggle 
between  the  supraliminal  self  of  the  writer  and  the  supposed 
influences.  The  supraliminal  self  is  obviously  afraid  of  being 
led  into  attaching  too  much  importance  to  the  writing.  It  is 
aware  that  some  of  the  names  are  derived  from  its  reading,  and 
both  resents  and  resists  their  incursion  into  the  script.  It  doubts 
the  use  of  the  attempts  and  is  not  very  willing  to  persevere 
with  them." 

Whereupon  the  script  remonstrates  and  encourages  (Pr. 
XXI,  179) : 

"  (September  19th,  1903.)  You  should  not  be  discouraged  if 
what  is  written  appears  to  you  futile —  Most  of  it  is  not  meant 


Ch.  XLI]      Controls'  Advice  to  Mrs.  Holland  655 

for  you —  You  are  the  reporter — the  recorder — and  need  not  be 
the  critic. . . .  Don't  be  in  too  great  a  hurry. 

"  (September  21st,  1903.)  Do  not  feel  that  criticism  need  act 
in  the  least  as  a  fetter — don't  let  it  hinder  you  at  all. . . .  Nothing 
is  unimportant,  however  much  it  seems  so — 

"  There  is  no  effort  unavailing — 

"  You  fail — yet  save  another's  failing." 

Myers  was  a  poet,  remember. 

"  (November  25th,  1903.)  Do  try  to  forget  your  abiding  fear 
of  being  made  a  fool  or  a  dupe.  If  we  ever  prompt  you  to  fan- 
tastic follies  you  may  leave  us.  But  we  only  wish  you  to  give  us 
a  few  passive  patient  minutes  each  day.  It's  a  form  of  restless  van- 
ity to  fear  that  your  hand  is  imposing  upon  yourself,  as  it  were. 

"  [  J.]  The  '  Gurney  control,'  who  expresses  himself  rather 
strongly  and  brusquely,  writes :  '  (November  14th,  1903.)  I 
can't  help  feeling  vexed  or  rather  angry  at  the  half-hearted  way 
in  which  you  go  in  for  this — you  should  either  take  it  or  leave  it. 
If  you  don't  care  enough  to  try  every  day  for  a  short  time,  better 
drop  it  altogether.  It's  like  making  appointments  and  not  keep- 
ing them.  You  endanger  your  own  powers  of  sensitiveness  and 
annoy  us  bitterly — G.' 

"  [  J.]  The  '  Myers  control/  on  the  other  hand,  makes  his 
appeal  to  the  sympathies  of  the  automatist:  '  (January  12th, 
1904.)  If  it  were  possible  for  the  soul  to  die  back  into  earth  life 
again  I  should  die  from  sheer  yearning  to  reach  you — to  tell  you 
that  all  that  we  imagined  is  not  half  wonderful  enough  for  the 

truth If  I  could  only  reach  you — if  I  could  only  tell  you — I 

long  for  power  and  all  that  comes  to  me  is  an  infinite  yearning 
— an  infinite  pain.  Does  any  of  this  reach  you — reach  any- 
one— or  am  I  only  wailing  as  the  wind  wails — wordless  and  un- 
heeded?" 

A  very  large  part  of  the  script  is  just  reiteration  of  these 
themes.  Many  of  the  alleged  Myers  manifestations  through 
Mrs.  Holland  are  anxious  and  gloomy,  and  thus  are  the  entire 
opposite  of  the  manifestations  of  an  enfranchised  and  beati- 
fied Myers  that  we  saw  through  Miss  Rawson,  and  shall  later 
see  through  Mrs.  Piper.  It  is  impossible  to  see  how  a  con- 
sciousness can  be  interested  in  anything  subject  to  variations, 
without  a  feeling  of  regret  when  the  variations  are  in  the 
unfavorable  direction,  and  of  a  regret  intensifying  with  the 
variations.  An  unvarying  happy  Heaven  would  be  an  enor- 
mously self-centered  and  stupid  one,  though  there's  no  ap- 
parent reason  why,  to  be  sufficiently  interesting,  it  would  need 
pains  and  sorrows  as  terrible  as  the  worst  we  know  here.  In 


656       Heteromatic  Script:  Mrs.  Holland    [Bk.  II,  Pt  IV, 

fact  many  of  the  worst  would  disappear  with  death;  and  as 
to  dishonor,  one  sometimes  sees  reason  to  question  whether 
survival  of  death  may  not  be  granted  only  to  the  souls  that 
somehow  merit  it— that  survival  may  be  an  achievement. 
Query :  Would  mere  good  nature  and  kindness  and  sympathy, 
and  love  of  children,  be  enough  for  the  achievement,  in  spite 
of  one's  sometimes  appearing  a  fine  old  egotist  and  farceur? 
If  not,  please  account  for  friend  Phinuit.  Somehow  I  think 
he  and  Falstaff  must  have  made  out  the  achievement. 

This  tempts  to  another  speculation  that  fits  in  with  the 
oft-noted  apparently  fragmentary  character  of  the  alleged 
post-mortem  personalities.  Why  should  more  of  a  person- 
ality survive  than  is  fit  to  survive?  That  would  probably 
leave  a  good  many  of  us  very  fragmentary  indeed,  whether 
the  standard  of  fitness  be  substantially  the  same  as  here,  or 
a  new  one.  This  suggests  a  possible  explanation  for  the 
otherwise  unaccountable  stupidity  of  the  controls  in  some 
directions  and  their  brightness  in  others.  Hodgson  recog- 
nizes all  his  friends,  but  cannot  translate  Veni,  vidi,  vici. 
Myers  is  about  as  apparently  absurd.  Perhaps  they  don't 
need  language  there — if  there  really  is  a  "  there  " — but  con- 
verse telepathically  by  thought  alone,  and  only  are  able  to  use 
language  exceptionally  "with  us?  Yet  it  would  be  pleasant 
to  have  a  memory  of  everything  worth  while  here;  and  not 
doing  so  seems  to  make,  on  the  whole,  against  spiritism. 
Stainton  Moses  forgets  not  merely  a  language,  but  the  names 
Imperator  and  his  gang  told  him  they  bore  on  earth,  and 
gives  Professor  Newbold  different  ones.  Did  Moses  forget 
the  old  ones,  or  lie  about  one  set  or  both?  There's  no  indi- 
cation of  his  ever  having  lied,  in  the  flesh,  except  as  his 
"  possessions  "  are  to  be  accounted  for. 

Myers  shows  lack  of  memory  of  languages,  but  apparently 
only  where  his  medium  doesn't  know  them;  but  there's  that 
envelope  which  he  left  with  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  for  the  express 
purpose  of  giving  its  contents,  and  he  gave  something  else! 
(p.  667).  It  seems  a  hopeless  muddle  of  contradictions.  We 
can  only  work  and  wait.  Miss  Johnson  says : 

"In  these  utterances,  taken  by  themselves,  there  is  clearly 
nothing  to  suggest  more  than  a  dramatization  by  her  subliminal 
self  of  personalities  that  had  attracted  Mrs.  Holland's  interest 


Ch.  XLI]  What  is  a  Personality?  657 

through  the  normal  means  of  reading  a  book.  The  question 
whether  anything  more  than  this  is  really  represented  in  them 
will  be  considered  later  on.  Meanwhile  I  am  bound  to  emphasize 
the  large  part  played  by  Mrs.  Holland's  normal  knowledge  in  the 
construction  of  the  various  roles." 

"  The  construction  of  the  various  roles."  What  a  dramatist 
Mrs.  Holland  must  have  been,  not  to  speak  of  Mrs.  Piper! 
I  wonder  if  any  one  of  the  commentators  on  these  ever  tried 
to  write  a  novel,  not  to  speak  of  a  play.  I  doubt  if  anybody 
who  has  would  be  quick  to  say  that  Mrs.  Holland  constructed 
the  roles.  But  after  all,  what  is  a  role — a  personality  ?  How 
many  items  enter  into  it?  One? — a  flash  of  recognition  on 
the  street  that  revolutionizes  and  irradiates  a  young  man's 
universe?  Millions? — those  that  become  familiar  in  long 
intimacy?  Must  a  personality  be  something  that  can  be  put 
on  a  scale,  and  will  register  pounds  and  ounces,  or  can  it  be 
met  and  enjoyed,  or  dreaded  and  suffered,  in  a  dream?  Is 
the  clod  who  takes  away  your  daily  ashes  a  personality,  while 
Malvolio  and  Kosalind  are  not?  All  that  we  know  of  a  per- 
sonality is  that  it  is  a  capacity  to  produce  certain  effects  upon 
us,  and  if  there  is  any  effect  that  a  personality  can  produce 
upon  us  waking  that  is  not  produced  by  the  personalities  of 
our  dreams,  I  do  not  know  what  it  is.  The  only  distinction 
I  know  is  that  this  personality  we  know  when  we  are  awake 
can  make  abiding  changes  in  matter  outside  our  brains,  while 
the  personalities  we  know  when  asleep  apparently  cannot; 
but  they  can  produce  changes  in  our  brains — in  our  convic- 
tions, habits,  hopes,  as  enduring  as  any  we  know. 

Perhaps  our  habitual  conceptions  of  personality  may  be  so 
definite  because  they  are  so  limited;  perhaps  we  may  be  on  the 
brink  of  wider  conceptions  which  will  materially  affect  our 
views  of  our  cosmic  relations.  Possibly  those  conceptions  will 
grow  a  little  clearer  even  during  our  present  investigations. 

The  more  I  question  regarding  the  probability  of  the  sensi- 
tives dramatizing — creating — the  "personalities"  which  pro- 
fess to  speak  through  them,  the  more  it  seems  to  me  that  we 
are  making  out  of  our  preconceptions  the  notion  that  they 
are  not  real  personalities,  and  that  if  we  could  be  the  standard 
clear  and  unprejudiced  "  intelligences  from  another  planet," 
we  would  simply  take  these  manifestations  for  the  personali- 


658       Hetcromatic  Script:  Mrs.  Holland    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

ties  they  appear,  be  their  degree  of  development  or  manifesta- 
tion what  it  may.  Yet  as  Miss  Johnson  continues  (p.  180) 
regarding  them,  she  presents  the  extreme  of  the  opposite 
view.  Perhaps  the  wisest  conclusion  yet  open  to  us  is  that 
sometimes  they  are  real  personalities  and  sometimes  not. 

"  They  came  into  existence  first  shortly  after  she  had  read 
Human  Personality,  and  it  will  be  seen  that  passages  from  this 
book  are  clearly  to  be  traced  in  the  script;  there  is  little  or  no- 
thing in  the  characterizations  that  could  not  be  derived  from  it 
directly  or  by  inference  by  an  intelligent  and  sympathetic 
reader.  There  are,  moreover,  a  certain  number  of  features  that 
an  intimate  friend  of  Mr.  Myers'  would  see  to  be  uncharacter- 
istic or  positively  incorrect.  Further,  the  personalities  become 
suddenly  more  vivid  and  realistic  at  a  later  date,  after  Mrs. 
Holland  had  seen  the  portraits  of  Mr.  Myers,  Mr.  Gurney  and 
Dr.  Sidgwick  in  Mr.  Myers'  posthumous  work,  Fragments  of 
Prose  and  Poetry,  and  glanced  at  parts  of  the  book  itself,  as 
described  below,  Pr.XXI,p.245 ;  and  again  after  she  had  seen 
reviews  of  the  Memoir  of  Dr.  Sidgwick  early  in  1906." 

Very  well  so  far  as  concerns  the  mere  material  for  the 
characterizations,  but  what  made  the  characterizations  them- 
selves, and  made  them  active,  and  endowed  them  with  motive, 
will,  repartee?  Is  it  banal  to  suggest  that  they  appear  to 
have  been  made  by  the  same  agency  that,  independent  of  her 
will,  made  her  poems?  The  influence  of  the  books  may  have 
merely  opened  her  mind  to  such  impressions  from  the  cosmic 
inflow,  or  the  controls  if  you  prefer. 

Of  course,  mere  facts  mentioned  in  Human  Personality 
were  presumably  in  Mrs.  Holland's  subliminal  consciousness, 
and  therefore  are  not  necessarily  to  be  referred  to  an  outside 
control.  But  I  have  reached  a  vague  impression  that  the  divi- 
sion between  the  "  subliminal "  and  "  outside  controls  "  may 
be  one  of  those  divisions  that  we  are  constantly  making  as 
crutches  to  our  halting  intellects,  and  to  whose  vague  and  pro- 
visional character  I  have  so  often  called  attention.  Most  of 
our  classifications,  from  the  more  or  less  exact  sciences  with 
which  we  started  together,  to  the  misty  impressions  among 
which  we  are  now  groping,  are  of  this  nature. 

We  are  in  a  universe  of  vibrations,  which  the  very  ety- 
mology of  the  name  universe  expresses  as  one.  We  split  off 
a  set  of  vibrations,  and  call  them  matter;  from  that  set  we 


Ch.  XLI]    Restatement  of  the  Cosmic  Soul  Hypothesis    659 

split  off  minor  sets,  and  call  them  resistance,  light,  heat, 
sound,  and  so  on;  these  minor  sets  we  farther  split  into  ex- 
ternal vibrations  and  resulting  nerve  vibrations;  and  then 
we  are  at  the  end  of  that  string.  But  parallel  with  the  nerve 
end  of  it  we  find  another,  reaching  we  know  not  where.  This 
we  split  into  impressions,  sensations,  emotions,  volitions.  Im- 
pressions we  split  into  those  outside  our  consciousness,  i.e.,  in 
other  consciousnesses,  and  those  inside  our  consciousness;  but 
yet  we  have  lately  found  them  very  interchangeable.  The 
agencies  moving  those  outside  into  the  inside,  we  split  up  on 
the  one  hand  into  other  people — the  agencies  we  know,  and 
on  the  other  hand,  those  we  don't  know,  which  we  again 
split  up  into  hypothetical  divine  inspirations,  "  controls," 
"  spirits,"  and  what-not ;  and  here  we  lose  the  second  string. 
Now  for  my  guess-work,  and  of  course  it  will  be  full  of 
paradoxes;  with  farther  knowledge  some  of  them  may  dis- 
appear ;  but  guess-work  is  our  only  way — successful  only  once 
in  many  times — of  finding  clues  to  farther  knowledge.  Well, 
as  all  the  groups  we  have  been  splitting  off  are  parts  of  one 
thing,  I  guess  (or  is  it  more  than  a  guess?)  that  the  sub- 
liminal and  the  controls  are  parts  of  one  thing — are  in  a 
sense  the  same  thing.  To  give  the  first  guess  more  definite 
shape,  I  go  on  to  guess  (or  is  it  more  than  a  guess?)  that, 
as  so  many  have  guessed  before  me,  the  universe  abounds  in 
impressions,  visions,  ideas,  God  knows  what.  Sometimes  they 
surge  in  upon  a  heteromatist.  They  stir  the  will  or  some 
sort  of  impulse  to  write,  and  the  impressions  tumble  pell- 
mell  upon  the  paper ;  and  when  they  come  in  a  coherent  mass 
with  enough  qualities  like  the  mass  we  call  a  human  mind,  or 
the  more  special  mass  we  call  a  special  human  mind,  we  call 
them,  depending  upon  the  size  and  quality  of  the  mass,  a 
human  being,  or  a  soul,  or  a  phantasm,  or  a  control,  or  any- 
thing else  prompted  by  the  circumstances.  One  mass  of  them 
shows  itself  as  the  heteromatist,  another  mass  as  the  control, 
several  masses  as  several  controls — Gurney,  Myers,  Imperator, 
perhaps  each  an  echo  of  the  heteromatist  or  of  a  previous 
heteromatist,  pretty  substantial,  but  not  half  as  substantial 
or  enduring  as  Ariel  or  Apollo  or  Colonel  Newcome  or  Mr. 
Pickwick.  And  all  four  of  them  are  more  substantial  than  I 
am  or  you  are,  unless  you  happen  to  be — who,  in  this  genera- 


660       Eeteromatic  Script:  Mrs.  Holland    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV. 

tion — Admiral  Togo?  A  generation  ago  I  should  have  said 
Spencer  or  Bismarck  or  Tennyson. 

All  this  provokes  the  fantastic  speculation  whether  a  genius 
cannot  generate  an  actual  psychic  personality,  as  he  can  a 
physical  one.  But  this  harks  back  to  the  relatively  primitive 
parthenogenesis.  The  suggested  process,  however,  is  presum- 
ably in  its  primitive  stage,  if  indeed  there  is  any  basis  at  all 
for  the  seemingly  extravagant  notion.  And  yet  things  that 
may  have  seemed  equally  extravagant  have  been  found  to  con- 
tain germs  of  truth;  and  a  very  similar  fantasy  is  to-day  an 
article  of  "  faith  "  with  the  majority  of  Christians,  including 
some  of  the  best  minds.  Compare  all  this  with  my  earlier 
suggestions  regarding  personality,  and  then  come  back  with 
me  to  where  there  is  a  little  less  fog. 

Now  that's  my  somewhat  turgid  and  somewhat  fantastic 
guess.  Vague?  Of  course  it  is:  we  are  dealing  with  vague 
things.  Paradoxical?  Of  course  it  is:  we  are  in  the  land 
of  paradox.  But  to  my  poor  thinking  or  guessing,  it  fits  the 
facts  as  well  as  the  other  guesses  and  the  other  paradoxes, 
and  I  have  the  presumption  farther  to  guess  that  the  progress 
of  knowledge  is  going  to  be  in  the  direction  of  giving  just 
that  guess  farther  shape. 

The  subliminal  self,  then,  I  have  again,  from  a  different 
standpoint,  come  around  to  guessing  to  be  so  much  of  the 
Cosmic  Soul  as  any  individual  may  at  the  time  have  suf- 
ficiently in  hand  to  call  his  own  soul — or  so  much  as  he  may 
have  in  hand  even  if  he  can't  call  his  soul  his  own.  And  as 
to  one's  own  soul  (though  this  is  an  episode) :  if  there  is 
any  significance  behind  the  universe,  and  reason  for  it — any 
purpose,  I  keep  on  guessing,  as  I  have  in  other  connections, 
that  such  significance,  reason,  purpose,  is  in  the  arrangement 
that  constantly  produces  individuals  who  gather  in  and  unify 
portions  of  the  Cosmic  Soul,  and  get  out  of  them  experience 
and  growth  and  discipline  and  morality  and  sympathy  and 
altruism  and  love — all  making  up  happiness. 

Well,  this,  and  more  which  will  come  later,  is  what  has 
been  growing  more  and  more  definite  to  me,  as  invisible  vapor 
grows  into  a  cloud,  as  I  have  been  studying  alone  these  strange 
tilings  we  are  now  studying  together ;  and  I  expect  the  cloud 
to  grow  more  definite  as  we  go  on.  To  me  it  has  seemed 


Ch.  XLI]    Impersonations  Beyond  Mortal  Capacity        661 

to  reflect  some  light  into  our  dark  places,  and  I  expect  it  to 
reflect  more. 

I  hope  I  need  not  apologize  for  this  additional  attempt  to 
describe  it,  or  for  other  attempts  that  I  am  apt  to  make  as  we 
go  on.  However  much  they  may  bore  you,  the  impression 
will  become  none  too  definite  if  you  think  it  worth  while  to 
go  on  at  all. 

After  writing  the  foregoing  guess,  on  turning  back  to  the 
Proceedings,  I  met  one  of  those  expressions  with  which  the 
literature  of  the  subject  abounds,  where  a  substitution  of 
cosmic  soul  for  subliminal  self  would,  it  seems  to  me,  aid  to 
an  explanation.  The  passage  in  no  way  influenced  my  guess : 
for  that  was  settled  long  ago.  Miss  Johnson  says  (Pr.  XXI, 
179): 

"  Meanwhile  the  various  '  controls,'  aided  and  abetted  by  the 
subliminal  self  (of  which  they  may,  indeed,  be  fragmentary 
manifestations),  appear  to  be  exerting  great  pressure  on  their 
side  by  various  arguments  and  artifices  to  encourage  the  writer 
and  persuade  her  to  go  on." 

Would  not  "  fragmentary  manifestations  "  of  that  size  and 
that  nature  seem  to  come  more  naturally  from  a  cosmic  soul 
than  from  a  subliminal  self,  unless  the  latter  is  taken  to  be 
merely  a  name  for  an  inflow  of  the  former?  The  job  of 
manufacturing  and  working  them — extempore,  so  to  speak, 
which  Miss  Johnson  attributes  to  Mrs.  Holland,  is,  like  Mrs. 
Piper's  job,  too  big  for  any  human  capacity,  and  the  inven- 
tion of  a  subliminal  capacity  doesn't  fill  the  bill. 

So  here  from  a  different  point  and  by  a  different  road,  we 
come  to  the  same  goal  whither  the  strange  phenomena,  at 
least  as  seen  through  my  eyes,  are  always  sending  us. 

Let  us  return  to  Mrs.  Holland  and  the  groups  of  im- 
pressions that  fell  upon  her  script.  On  the  foregoing  quota- 
tions from  the  Gurney  and  Myers  controls,  Miss  Johnson 
comments  (Pr.  XXI,  180f.)  : 

"  As  usual,  varieties  of  hand-writing  are  associated  with  the 
different  controls,  though  they  are  not  always  used  consistently 

for  the  same  one The  '  Gurney  control '  was  a  more  bold 

and  upright  style Of  this  style  Mrs.  Holland  wrote :  '  When 

the  writing  changes  from  very  sloping  to  upright,  I  always  get 
the  impression  of  a  younger  and  more  brusque  personality.  The 
initial  "  G."  often  comes  then.' 


662       Eeteromatic  Script:  Mrs.  Holland    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IY 

" On  November  18th,  1903,  the  '  Myers  control '  begins 

in  pencil,  then  writes :  '  Take  a  pen/  and  the  writing  goes  on  in 
ink,  '  That's  well — a  pen  is  best  when  I  am  here — pencil  for  the 
upright  vehement  writing,'  viz.,  that  of  the  '  Gurney  control ' ; 
and  henceforth  these  two  controls  generally — but  not  invariably 
— use  a  pen  or  pencil  respectively. 

"  There  is  no  resemblance  between  their  writings  and  the 
actual  hand-writings  of  Mr.  Myers  and  Mr.  Gurney,  nor — so  far 
as  I  am  aware — is  there  any  reason  for  associating  ink  specially 
with  one  and  pencil  with  the  other.  It  appears  to  be  simply  a 
sort  of  subliminal  device  for  keeping  the  two  personalities  dis- 
tinct ;  nevertheless  they  often  tend  to  merge  into  one  another, — 
the  suggestion  being  that  two  influences — real  or  imaginary — 
are  present  at  once,  or  that  one  is  being  gradually  displaced  by 
the  other." 

A  very  natural  suggestion !  And  why  all  this  ingenuity  to 
make  the  influences  "  imaginary,"  whatever  that  may  mean  in 
the  connection,  I  cannot  quite  make  out.  I  admire  the  in- 
genuity, but  cannot  help  thinking  that  it  forces  the  note,  and 
also  thinking  that  if  Miss  Johnson  had  not  inherited  Du  Prel's 
"subliminal"  via  Myers,  she  would  not  have  worked  it  out 
from  the  phenomena  themselves. 

Do  not  all  things  "  tend  to  merge  into  one  another,"  espe- 
cially all  minds,  to  a  degree  not  dreamed  of  before  we  became 
familiar  with,  telepathy  ? 

"  A  similar  subliminal  device  is  manifested  on  Jan.  6th,  1904 
— thus  described  by  the  script :  '  Two  influences — that  was  why 
the  pencil  slipped  from  your  fingers  and  flew  across  the  room 

then Don't  you  notice  a  new  feature  to-day — that  every  few 

minutes  we  make  you  take  another  pencil.  It's  easier  for  us, 
and  it  marks  the  change  for  you.'  Mrs.  Holland  notes  . . . '  At 
the  end  my  hand  felt  shaken  and  pushed  as  it  did  when  I  first 
began  to  get  these  writings,  scrawling  wildly  till  it  was  stopped. 
The  [word  at  the  end  of  the  script]  "  stop  "  was  from  without 
entirely.  I  was  willing  to  let  it  scrawl  on  and  over  to  the  next 
page  if  the  impulse  continued.' 

"  On  May  23rd,  1907,  Mrs.  Holland  writes  of  this  occasion:  *  I 
still  recall  clearly  the  curious  sensation  that  accompanied  the 
word  "  stop."  My  hand  seemed  to  be  taken,  the  wrist  turned 
towards  the  left  and  then  drawn  off  the  paper.  It  is  the  only 
time  I  have  ever  felt  "  uncanny  "  in  connection  with  script. . . .'  " 

When  something  definitely  opposes  a  person,  isn't  it,  I  ask 
again,  very  apt  to  be  time  to  let  Du  Prel  and  his  subliminal  go  ? 

"Mrs.  Holland  says  in  her  preliminary  account — already 
quoted — that  she  used  to  have  with  the  impulse  to  write  or  speak 


Uh.  XLI]  Dreamlike  Experiences  663 

a  severe  headache  which  vanished  with  the  fulfilment  and  ces- 
sation of  the  impulse.  In  two  of  the  cases  described  in  the 
fuller  account  which  I  omit,  she  seems  to  have  partially  lost 
consciousness.  Thus,  in  the  first :  '  I  shut  my  eyes.  It  seemed 
to  me  that  the  pencil  scribbled  wildly,  like  a  child  pretending  to 

write My  right  arm  seemed  the  only  part  of  my  body  that  was 

not  asleep,  and  I  was  only  conscious  of  Mr.  D.  saying  now  and 
again,  "  Wait  a  minute,"  when  he  slipped  fresh  paper  under  my 
hand.  Then  the  influence  suddenly  passed;  I  opened  my  eyes 
feeling  refreshed  and  alert,  my  headache  was  absolutely  gone.' 
Again,  in  the  second  case,  when  the  impulse  took  the  form  of 
speech :  '  Though  I  spoke  English,  I  felt  as  if  reading  aloud  from 
a  language  I  could  pronounce  but  not  translate.  It  seemed  to 
come  from  my  lips  only.  I  was  perfectly  conscious;  I  watched 
the  effect  of  mingled  moonlight  and  electric  light  on  the  deck 

before  me My  voice  went  on,  but  I  did  not  grasp  the  sense 

of  a  single  sentence.'  In  continuation  of  the  same  incident, 
next  evening :  '  I  began  to  describe  an  elderly  man,  his  character, 
manner  and  appearance,  down  to  minute  details,  and  this  time 
I  understood  what  I  was  saying,  but  the  words  came  without 
being  chosen.' " 

This  emphasizes  the  resemblance  of  these  experiences  to 
dreams.  It  reminds  me  of  some  of  my  own  dreams  when  I 
read  printed  slips  that  seem,  independently  of  me,  to  grow  as 
I  read  them. 

Messages  from  the  Myers  and  Gurney  controls  similar  to 
these  which  aroused  the  foregoing  speculations,  make  a  con- 
siderable part  of  Mrs.  Holland's  script.  There  is  also  con- 
siderable veridical  telepsychosis  and  cross  correspondence. 
Miss  Johnson  continues  (Pr.  XXI,  193) : 

"  The  next  passage,  written  on  the  same  day,  begins  with  the 
date  1888  (the  date  of  Mr.  Gurney's  death,  also  stated  in  Human 
Personality),  and  the  initials  F.,  E.,  and  H.  S. — obviously  in- 
tended to  represent  Mr.  [F.]  Myers,  Mr.  [E.]  Gurney  and  Pro- 
fessor [H.]  Sidgwick. 

" '  September  16th,  1903,  11  A.  M. 
" «  [M.]     1888        F.        E.        H.  S.  [in  monogram.] 
" '  Believe  in  what  thou  canst  not  see 
Until  the  vision  come  to  thee 

What  though  the  work  may  seem  all  wrought  in  vain 
What  though  the  labor  seems  to  bring  no  gain 
Take  courage  and  be  strong  to  work  again 
There  were  three  workers  once  upon  the  earth 
Three  that  have  passed  through  Death's  great  second  birth 


664       Eeteromatic  Script:  Mrs.  Holland    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV! 

Their  work  remains  and  some  of  lasting  worth 
Long  dead  and  lately  dead  shall  be  as  one. 

1888.  1888. 

[illegible]        Forgotten?" 

The  following  from  the  Myers  and  Gurney  controls  give 
a  good  idea  of  the  situation: 

(Pr.XXI,203-4)  :  "  [M.]  My  dear  [  J. :  Here  again  no  name  is 
written,  but  a  long  irregular  line  is  drawn.]  Perhaps  a  letter 
to  you  will  be  easier  than  a  sustained  account — I  have  so  little 
strength  as  yet  for  this  form  of  communication — 

"  I  know  it  will  soon  be  three  years  since  I '  passed  over  passed 
on ' — but  I  feel  still  in  early  stages  of  development  as  it  were — 
The  obscuration  of  consciousness  was  prolonged  in  my  case  to 
an  abnormal  period —  Nearly  the  whole  of  the  first  year  was 
hidden  for  me — I  was  entranced  as  it  were —  That  accounts  for 
some  failures  of  compact  does  it  not.  It  is  all  so  far  more 
difficult  than  one  imagines —  Even  granting  the  strength  requi- 
site to  reach  the  threshold  one  can  but  fall  helplessly  upon  it — 
spent — and  one's  message  stilled — " 

(Pr.XXI,205-6) :  "  [G.]  It's  no  good—  He  needs  such  con- 
genial conditions  or  else  he  fails  altogether —  For  one  reason 
he  really  belongs  in  spiritual  development  to  a  higher  level — a 
higher  plane — and  if  he  were  there  you  under  present  conditions 
would  not  be  able  to  receive  even  the  faintest  impression  from 
him —  Earth  bound  isn't  quite  the  word  I  want  but  I  do  not 
know  how  else  to  convey  to  you  the  condition  of  those  of  us  who 
are  able  to  send  messages —  Understand  it's  not  bound  by 
earth  it's  bound  to  earth  by  love — memory  powerful  interests — 
F[rederic  Myers.  H.H.]'s  mind  is  prepared  for  the  higher 
planes — it  is  strong  feeling — great  attachments — that  keep  him 
on  this  level — and  that  prevent  him  from  sending  the  messages 
he  is  so  anxious  to  send —  It  was  a  tremendous  effort  to  him  to 
appear — in  your  mind's  eye  the  way  that  he  did  a  fortnight  ago 
— and  it  has  weakened  the  message  ever  since — 

"  [  J.]  This  passage  shows  that  the  man  seen  by  Mrs.  Holland 
in  a  mind's-eye  vision  on  November  7th,  as  described  in  her 
script  of  that  day,  quoted  above,  was  identified  by  her  at  the  time 
as  Mr.  Myers.  I  have  already  explained  that  this  was  a  mis- 
recognition.  (See  Pr.XXI,189.)  " 

Later  still,  the  Myers  control  writes: 

(Pr.XXI,213) :  "  [M.]  (Wednesday,  January  6th,  10.45  A.M.) 
I  have  thought  of  a  simile  which  may  help  you  to  realize  the 
bound  to  earth  condition  which  persists  with  me.  It  is  a  matter 
very  largely  of  voluntary  choice —  I  am  as  it  were — actuated 
by  the  missionary  spirit  and  the  great  longing  to  speak  to  the 


Ch.  XII]    From  Myers  Control's  Point  of  View  665 

souls  in  prison — still  in  the  prison  of  the  flesh — leads  me  to 
'  absent  me  from  felicity  awhile.'  " 

(Pr.XXI,218) :  "  [M.]  The  appearance  of  the  simulacre  [sic] 
does  not  necessarily  imply  that  the  spirit  is  consciously  present. 
It  may  project  the  phantasm  from  a  great  distance.  More  usu- 
ally however  it  is  present.  On  two  occasions  only  I  myself  have 
been  able  to  perceive  the  surroundings  I  so  desired  to  see — once 
[illegible]  at  a  Meeting  and  you  all  appeared  to  me  as  flat  card- 
board figures  seen  through  a  gray  mist —  The  next  time  was  a 
few  weeks  ago  at  home 

An  odd  fantasy  for  Mrs.  Holland  to  create  for  herself ! 

"  I  would  try  so  hard  on  the  anniversary  [the  third  of  his 
death.  H.H.]  that  is  only  nine  days  away  now  if  I  could  be 
sure  that  you  really  wished  and  desired  my  eidolon  without  any 
fear  or  reluctance — 

Eidolon  is  a  very  natural  word  for  a  Grecian  like  Myers. 
I  wonder  if  it  was  natural  for  Mrs.  Holland ! 

"  Any  terror  would  distress  me  unspeakably. 

"  In  my  present  state  thoughts  pain  me  more  than  wounds  or 
burns  could  do  while  I  lived —  It  is  part  of  the  stage  through 
which  I  pass  an  evolutionary  phase " 

(Pr.XXI,246-7) :  "  [M.]  If  one  could  only  find  a  stupid  sen- 
sitive but  the  very  quickness  of  the  impressionability  that  en- 
ables the  brain  to  perceive  an  influence  from  afar  renders  it  an 
ever  present  danger  to  the  message  that  is  trying  to  be  impressed. 
Anxiety  to  help — fear  of  unconscious  cheating  or  of  self-decep- 
tion all  cramp  the  hand  and  impede  the  willingness  to  give  time 
and  a  quiet  mind  to  this — 

"  It  becomes  increasingly  hard  for  me  to  realize  the  effect  of 
Time  and  Space  upon  your  conditions —  For  me  they  have  been 
annulled — I  am  obliged  to  remember  now  to  recall  what  potent 
factors  they  are  upon  the  body 

"  [G.]  Names?  Names  and  proofs  are  the  very  things  we 
must  withhold  [stc]  from  you  because  your  brain  which  you 
cannot  or  will  not  lull  to  a  proper  state  of  passivity — will  spin 
its  own  web  round  whatever  is  presented  to  you —  For  truth's 
sake  we  must  be  veiled  and  ambiguous —  A  gurnet  among  the 
sedge  which  grew  in  the  mires —  [ J. :  This  somewhat  crude 
punning  on  the  names  Gurney,  Sidgwick,  and  Myers,  was  not 
noticed  by  Mrs.  Holland  till  I  showed  it  to  her  later.]  " 

(Pr.XXI,230) :  [November  26th,  1903.]  [M.]  "  The  nearest 
simile  I  can  find  to  express  the  difficulties  of  sending  a  message 
— is  that  I  appear  to  be  standing  behind  a  sheet  of  frosted  glass 
— which  blurs  sight  and  deadens  sounds — dictating  feebly — to 
a  reluctant  and  somewhat  obtuse  secretary.  A  feeling  of  terrible 
impotence  burdens  me — I  am  so  powerless  to  tell  what  means 


6G6       Heteromatic  Script:  Mrs.  Holland    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV. 

so  much —    I  cannot  get  into  communication  with  those  who 
would  understand  and  believe  me." 

There  is  much  more  of  this  sort  of  thing  scattered  all 
through. 

The  following  is  a  strange  passage  to  assert,  as  some 
authorities  would,  to  be  manufactured  by  Mrs.  Holland  from 
shreds  of  forgotten  knowledge:  it  looks  so  much  more  like 
what  it  purports  to  be — a  communication  from  the  disem- 
bodied Myers. 

(Pr.XXI,210) :  "  [M.]  Nothing  was  written  by  me  yester- 
day—  The  time  when  I  may  hope  to  write  a  continuous  narra- 
tive— or  to  send  evidential  messages  by  your  hand  seems  as  far 
away  as  ever. 

"  Four  years  ago  we  were  talking  together  one  evening  at  my 
house  Podmore  was  there  I  remember  and  Barrett  I  think  Pid- 
dington  and  Lang  but  I  am  not  sure — It  was  about  a  letter  that 
had  lately  been  received  by  Hodgson  and  which  [illegible 
scribbles] 

"  [G.]  It's  no  good —  He  can't  manage  more  than  a  few  lines 
— and  your  dislike  to  names  makes  it  all  the  more  difficult  for 
him.  You  can't  help  it  I  know." 

Yet  Miss  Johnson  says  that  she  has  reason  to  "  believe  that 
no  such  meeting  took  place  at  that  date." 

The  following  telopsis  through  Myers  (?)  has  an  interest 
for  us  as  introducing  Mrs.  Verrall,  of  whom  we  shall  see 
considerable. 

(Pr.XXI,212) :  "  [M.]  She  is  not  very  tall— a  slender  figure 
often  dressed  in  green — <lark  hair — rather  pushed  from  the  fore- 
head— straying  a  little  from  the  centre  parting — very  mobile 
brows — pince-nez  when  she  writes —  A  strong  chin — mouth 
thin-lipped  but  sympathetic — a  strong  face  but  not  a  hard 
one —  Mind  admirably  well  balance  [sic] — Hands  with  long 
fingers — but  the  palms  well  developed —  No  foolish  impulses — 
but  no  fear  of  sudden  actions  which  seem  the  outcome  of  sudden 
impulse —  Age — 32 — 33 — I  forget —  What  importance  has  age 
to  me  now — 

"  [J.]  This  description  may  be  the  first  emergence  of  the  idea 
of  Mrs.  Verrall's  personal  appearance  and  character  which  seems 
to  have  developed  further  in  March,  1905,  soon  after  the  first 
experiments  between  Mrs.  Holland  and  Mrs.  Verrall  began." 

The  following  remarks  of  Miss  Johnson  seem  to  me  to 
contain  evidential  matter  far  more  than  well-checked-up  facts 


Ch.  XLI]    Holland-Myers  versus  Verrall-Myers  667 

can.    Unfortunately  they  anticipate  what  knowledge  we  shall 
get,  and  some  we  shall  not  get,  of  Mrs.  Verrall's  script. 

(Pr.XXI,239-40) :  "The  reader  who  compares  the  general 
character  of  the  two  scripts  can  hardly  fail  to  notice  the  emo- 
tional nature  and  the  note  of  personal  appeal  in  the  utterances 
of  the  Holland-Myers  as  contrasted  with  the  calmer,  more  imper- 
sonal and  more  matter-of-fact  tone  of  the  Verrall-Myers 

"  //  Mr.  Myers  really  knew  what  was  going  on  and  if  he  was 
really  concerned  in  the  production  of  the  scripts,  it  would  be 
natural  and  appropriate  that  he  should  attempt  to  impress  the 
two  automatists  in  these  different  ways.  Mrs.  Verrall,  a  per- 
sonal friend  and  trained  investigator,  was  already  familiar  with 
scientific  methods  and  in  close  touch  with  other  investigators. 
She  did  not  require  urging  to  go  on  with  her  writing,  from 
which  some  important  evidence  had  already  resulted. 

"  Mrs.  Holland,  on  the  other  hand,  was  in  an  isolated  position 
[in  India,  with  a  family  opposed  to  her  heteromatic  writing. 
H.H.] ;  she  was  conscious  of  the  superficially  trivial  and  inco- 
herent nature  of  her  script,  and  could  not  tell  whether  there  was 
anything  in  it  beyond  a  dream-like  rechauffe  of  her  own  thoughts. 
She  would  naturally  shrink  from  exposing  this  to  strangers  and 
thereby  appearing  to  attach  an  unreasonable  degree  of  impor- 
tance to  it.  We  may  suppose  then  that  the  control  realizes  her 
situation  and  tries  to  impress  on  her  a  vivid  realization  of  his 
own, — his  intense  desire  to  provide  evidence  of  survival.  The  re- 
iterations in  her  script  as  compared  with  Mrs.  Verrall's, — a 
point  brought  out  rather  strikingly  in  the  summary, — denotes 
perhaps  that  a  more  strenuous  effort  is  required  in  her  case,  in 
order  that  she  may  be  persuaded  to  disregard  her  own  feelings 
and  risk  misunderstanding  for  the  sake  of  a  remotely  possible 
good." 

"  We  may  suppose,"  etc.  Yes,  but  if  we  do,  what  becomes 
of  that  precious  "  subliminal "  ?  This  sort  of  thing  is  in- 
evitable, and  consoles  me  a  little  for  my  own  constant  wobbling. 

The  following  refers  to  a  matter  of  crucial  interest : 

(Pr.XXI,242-4) :  "  [M.]  Tinder  other  conditions  I  should  say 
how  much  I  regretted  the  failure  of  the  envelope  test  and  I  do 
regret  it  because  it  was  a  disappointment  to  you — otherwise  it  is 
too  trivial  to  waste  a  thought  upon — . . .  Imperfect  instruments 
imperfect  means  of  communication.  The  living  mind  however 
sensitive — intrudes  its  own  conceptions  upon  the  signalled  mes- 
sage— 

"  [J.]  The  reference  here  is  obviously  to  an  experiment  with  a 
sealed  envelope  left  by  Mr.  Myers  with  Sir  Oliver  Lodge.  As 
members  of  the  Society  are  aware,  various  statements  had  been 
made  in  Mrs.  Verrall's  script  during  1904  about  the  contents  of 


668       Heteromatic  Script:  Mrs.  Holland    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

this  envelope.  It  was  opened  on  December  13th,  1904,  and  its 
contents  were  then  found  to  have  no  resemblance  to  what  was 
alleged  about  it  in  the  script.  An  account  of  this  experiment 
was  printed  in  [several  publications.  H.H.]  . . .  All  these  facts 
being  of  course  familiar  to  me,  I  concluded  that  Mrs.  Holland 
had  most  probably  seen  one  of  the  newspaper  accounts  of  the 
incident 1  asked  her  if  she  thought  she  had  seen  any  refer- 
ence to  it.  She  answered  very  decidedly  that  she  had  no  recol- 
lection of  ever  seeing  or  hearing  anything  about  it  till  that 
moment.  I  asked  if  she  thought  it  possible  that  she  could  have 
forgotten  it,  if  she  had  read  it.  She  thought  this  impossible,  as 
she  would  certainly  have  been  greatly  interested  in  it." 

At  first  sight,  this  is  the  most  staggering  blow  the  spirit- 
istic hypothesis  has  received,  unless  it  be  the  discrepancy  be- 
tween the  names  for  their  ante-mortem  selves  given  by 
Imperator  and  his  companions  to  Stainton  Moses,  and  by 
him  to  Myers  and  others,  and  those  given  by  the  Piper-Moses 
to  Professor  Newbold.  I  have  no  desire  to  minimize  the  force 
of  this  discrepancy,  but  I  have  given  some  considerations  that 
ought  to  be  regarded,  in  connection  with  Professor  Newbold's 
experience,  on  p.  547. 

Eegarding  the  Myers  envelope,  the  council  of  the  S.  P.  E. 
said,  in  the  Journal  for  January,  1905,  p.  13 : 

"  It  has,  then  to  be  reported  that  this  one  experiment  has  com- 
pletely failed,  and  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  failure  is  dis- 
appointing. Considering,  however,  how  very  few  experiments  of 
this  kind  have  ever,  so  far  as  we  know,  been  tried  at  all,  and 
how  great,  on  any  hypothesis,  must  be  the  obstacles  to  success,  it 
would  be  unreasonable  either  to  relax  our  efforts  on  account  of 
this  single  failure  or  because  of  it  unduly  to  discount  the  other 
matter  contained  in  Mrs.  Verrall's  script  which  there  is  any 
reason  to  regard  as  evidential." 

Dr.  Hodgson  died  on  December  20,  1905.  On  February 
6,  1906,  the  Myers  control  wrote,  through  Mrs.  Holland 
(Pr.  XXI,  283) : 

"  A  great  loss  for  you  on  your  side  [of  death,  of  course.  H.H.] 
but  a  gain  on  the  other.  He  may  prove  a  communicating  power 
soon." 

A  strange  form  of  expression  for  Mrs.  Holland  to  fall  into ! 
The  dramatic  quality  of  it  is  striking.  It  is  Myers,  not  Mrs. 
Holland.  To  do  the  subject  justice,  it  is  essential  always  to 
be  awake  to  the  dramatic  quality  of  the  alleged  communica- 


Ch.  XLI]          " Subliminal  Recrudescence"  669 

tions — a  remark  perhaps  banal  after  what  has  been  said  al- 
ready. 

I  find  that  I  am  getting  to  use  "  banal "  almost  as  frequently 
as  Mrs.  Piper  used  "  evolute  "  in  the  Newbold  Notes,  Chapter 
XXXV.  I  hope  the  circumstances  excuse  me. 

Miss  Johnson  thus  writes  (Pr.  XXI,  286-7)  of  what  she 
is  pleased  to  call  Subliminal  Recrudescence,  but  when  a  re- 
crudescence takes  the  shape  of  a  veridical  vision,  that  term 
hardly  tells  "the  whole  truth."  The  matter  is  enormously 
interesting  as  illustrating  the  genesis  of  visions — and  dreams. 

"  Two  incidents  occurring  at  about  this  period  illustrate  in  a 
striking  manner  the  possibility  of  recrudescence  of  memories 
that  have  completely  lapsed  from  the  normal  consciousness,  and 
show  at  the  same  time  the  practical  difficulty  of  proving  a  per- 
son's ignorance  of  almost  any  event  in  the  past,  and  the  con- 
sequent necessity  for  caution  in  attributing  knowledge  of  any 
such  event  to  a  supernormal  cause. 

"  In  the  first  case,  Mrs.  Holland  had  heard  of  the  incident  only 
a  few  months  before  it  was  represented  to  her  through  a  halluci- 
nation; but  she  had  paid  so  little  attention  to  the  recital  that 
apparently  she  forgot  it  immediately  afterwards.  In  the  second 
case  she  had  been  deeply  interested  at  the  time  in  what  she 
heard ;  but  the  event  had  entirely  faded  from  her  memory  before 
she  reproduced  it — nearly  twenty  years  later — in  her  script. 

"In  a  letter  dated  December  19th,  1905,  Mrs.  Holland  de- 
scribes an  apparition  recently  seen  by  her  as  follows : 

"'On  Wednesday  evening  [Dec.  13th],  at  9.30... when  I 
came  briskly  into  a  small  and  very  brightly  lighted  room,  I  saw 
the  figure  of  a  very  tall,  thin  man,  dressed  in  gray,  standing  with 
his  back  to  the  fire.  He  had  a  long  face,  I  think  a  mustache — 
certainly  no  beard — and  suggested  young  middle  age ;  but  at  my 
second  step  forward  he  was  gone.  I  had  been  thinking  only  of  a 
business  letter  I  was  about  to  answer,  and  cannot  explain  the 
tall  gray  figure  at  all.  I  have  seen  nothing  of  the  kind  since 
1901.  I  have  gone  into  that  little  white  sitting-room  many  times 
since,  at  all  kinds  of  hours,  often  hoping  to  see  the  gray  figure 
again,  but  I  have  not  been  fortunate.' 

"  The  description  suggested  Mr.  Gurney  to  me,  but  I  made  no 
comment  on  it  to  Mrs.  Holland.  On  March  llth,  1906,  she  wrote : 

"  '  Do  you  remember  the  tall  man  in  gray  I  saw  here  one  even- 
ing in  the  winter?  The  other  morning  I  went  into  a  small  room 
next  my  own,  thinking  only  of  putting  away  an  evening  dress. 
The  tall  figure  in  gray  was  lying  on  the  bed  in  a  very  flung- 
dpwn,  slack-jointed  attitude.  The  face  was  turned  from  me,  the 
right  arm  hanging  back  across  the  body,  which  lay  on  the  left 


670       Heteromatic  'Script:  Mrs.  Holland    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

side.  I  started  violently,  and  my  foot  seemed  to  strike  a  small 
empty  bottle  on  the  floor. 

" '  The  figure  was  gone  in  an  instant,  as  before,  and  though  I 
looked  carefully  I  could  find  nothing  on  the  floor  to  even  suggest 
the  bottle  I  had  kicked. 

" '  I  know  this  house  has  no  story  even  remotely  connected 
with  a  suicide  or  an  over-dose  of  any  drug,  so  I  don't  under- 
stand it  at  all.  I  had  not  been  stooping  or  tiring  my  eyes  in 
any  way.' 

"  On  March  29th,  Mrs.  Holland  wrote  to  me  that  the  date 
when  she  saw  the  second  apparition  was  either  February  27th  or 
28th  [1906.  H.H.]. 

"  Mr.  Gurney  died  from  an  accidental  over-dose  of  chloroform, 
probably  taken  for  neuralgia  or  insomnia,  on  June  22nd,  1888. 
I  was  at  first  much  puzzled  to  account  for  the  details  of  the 
second  apparition,  since  the  manner  of  his  death  is  not,  of  course, 
mentioned  either  in  Human  Personality  or  in  the  obituary  no- 
tice of  him  in  Mr.  Myers's  Fragments  of  Prose  and  Poetry. 
Later,  however,  I  found  from  my  notes  of  my  first  interview 
with  Mrs.  Holland  on  October  6th,  1905,  that  I  had  myself  told 
her  the  main  facts.  On  May  28th,  1906,  I  saw  her  again  and  re- 
minded her  of  this.  She  said  she  had  entirely  forgotten  it  (as  I 
had)  and  was  doubtful  if  she  could  remember  it  even  when 
reminded  of  it;  and  that  she  took  very  little  interest  in  Mr. 
Gurney,  being  mainly  interested  in  Mr.  Myers." 

Note  that  the  death  was  in  1888,  the  first  vision  in  Decem- 
ber, 1905,  and  the  second  in  February,  1906,  that  she  had  never 
seen  Mr.  Gurney,  and  seen  only  a  portrait  that  presumably 
was  not  full  length,  and  that  the  sensation  of  kicking  an 
empty  bottle  on  the  floor  was  an  extraordinary  element  of  a 
vision. 

This  may  be  as  good  a  place  as  any  to  repeat  the  story 
which  Myers  told  me  in  1894  of  the  circumstances  which  gave 
him  his  first  conviction  of  the  personality's  survival  of  death. 

Gurney  died  on  a  Saturday  night,  in  a  hotel,  while  he  was 
on  a  journey.  Myers  knew  nothing  of  it  before  Monday. 
On  Sunday,  while  in  church,  he  suddenly  got  a  mental  im- 
pression: "Your  friend  is  still  with  you."  So  far  as  I  re- 
member, he  said  he  was  little  affected  by  it,  and  continued 
his  attention  to  the  service,  until  it  was  repeated  several 
times;  and  by  the  time  he  left  the  church  he  could  think  of 
little  else.  I  think  he  told  me,  but  cannot  be  certain,  that 
he  was  then  and  there  reminded  of  a  post-mortem  communi- 
cation pact  that  he  had  made  with  Gurney,  and  I  am  as  near 


Ch.  XLI]    The  Gurney-Myers  Manifestation  Pact  671 

certain  as  it  will  do  to  be  of  anything  but  the  main  fact,  that 
he  then  and  there  expected  to  learn  that  some  friend  had 
died. 

I  regret  that  I  made  no  notes  when  Myers  told  me,  taking 
it  for  granted  that  he  had  made  some  cotemporaneously  with 
the  event,  and  would  print  them.  I  have  found  none,  how- 
ever. Yet  I  have  no  hesitation  in  repeating  what  he  told 
me  and  probably  told  many  others:  for  there  was  no  seal 
of  confidence. 

We  shall  see  more  of  Mrs.  Holland  in  connection  with  a 
Hodgson  control  and  Cross-Correspondences. 

We  have  now,  through  Miss  Eawson,  Mrs.  Thompson,  and 
Mrs.  Holland,  had  a  somewhat  systematic  account  of  Myers' 
early  appearances  as  a  control.  It  does  not  seem  well  to 
follow  the  thread  systematically,  but  we  shall  see  more  of 
him  incidentally  through  Mrs.  Verrall  and  Mrs.  Piper. 

And  getting  all  these  ladies  into  a  paragraph  reminds  me  of 
somebody's  expression  a  dozen  years  ago  to  the  effect  that  all 
the  hopes  of  immortality  offered  by  the  S.  P.  R.  hang  on  the 
dreams  of  one  hysterical  woman!  This  was  absurd  at  the 
time,  and  its  absurdity  has  been  growing. 

The  connection,  however,  directs  attention  to  one  circum- 
stance that  may  be  found,  in  time,  to  mean  something.  De- 
spite some  exceptions,  the  great  mediums  of  the  third  quarter 
of  the  nineteenth  century  were  men — those  of  the  last  twenty- 
five  years  have  been  women. 


CHAPTER  XLII 
HETEROMATIC  SCRIPT:  MRS.  VERRALL 

WE  now  turn  to  the  heteromatic  scripts  produced  by  Mrs. 
Verrall,  wife  of  Professor  A.  W.  Verrall  of  Cambridge,  and 
herself  lecturer  in  Newnham  College.  The  whole  volume  of 
Pr.  XX  is  devoted  to  a  very  thorough  examination  of  them, 
by  Mrs.  Verrall  herself. 

To  any  person  of  scholarly  sympathies,  the  book  suggests 
the  proverbial  "  liberal  education."  It  is  not  uncomplimen- 
tary to  the  volume  to  name  that  aspect  of  it  before  its  aspect 
as  a  contribution  to  Psychical  Eesearch:  for  the  phenomena 
themselves  are  of  moderate  interest  beside  most  of  those  de- 
scribed in  these  pages,  but  their  evidential  value  is  high,  and 
their  implications  most  important,  and,  as  already  intimated, 
the  treatment  of  them  is  pervaded  by  wide  scholarship,  and  is 
charming. 

Mrs.  Verrall's  account  of  her  experiences  is  in  part  (Pr. 
XX,  7-16)  : 

"My  experiences  in  Crystal  Gazing  during  the  years  1889- 
1892  were  recorded  and  published  in  the  Proceedings  S.P.R., 
Vol.  VIII.,  p.  473,  et  seq.  With  a  few  doubtful  exceptions  the 
pictures  so  seen  were  purely  fantastic.  With  Planchette  or  a 
table,  if  I  have  sat  with  a  second  person,  I  have  usually  obtained 
movements,  though  the  results  were  seldom  of  any  interest;  but 
till  recently  I  was  quite  unable  to  get  any  movement  with  Plan- 
chette when  sitting  alone,  or  any  writing  with  a  free  pencil, 
except  a  few  letters  repeated  in  meaningless  combinations,  e,  v,  r, 
appearing  and  reappearing  as  '  every,  very,  ever,'  and  so  on.  It 
is  probable  that  the  letters  of  my  surname,  the  word  most  fre- 
quently written  in  ordinary  life  without  conscious  effort,  were 
responsible  for  the  words  produced 

She  says  that  after  several  unsuccessful  attempts,  on 
March  5,  1901 : 

672 


Ch.  XLII]  Formative  Experiences  673 

"  I  took  the  pencil  between  my  thumb  and  first  finger,  and  after 
a  few  nonsense-words  it  wrote  rapidly  in  Latin.  I  was  writing 
in  the  dark  and  could  not  see  what  I  wrote ;  the  words  came  to 
me  as  single  things,  and  I  was  so  much  occupied  in  recording 
each  as  it  came  that  I  had  not  any  general  notion  of  what  the 
meaning  was.  I  could  never  remember  the  last  word ;  it  seemed 
to  vanish  completely  as  soon  as  I  had  written  it.  Sometimes  I 
had  great  difficulty  in  recognizing  what  was  the  word  I  wanted 
to  write,  while  at  other  times  I  could  only  get  part  of  it.  When 
I  had  filled  one  sheet  of  paper,  I  turned  up  the  electric  light 
and  read  what  had  been  written,  before  going  on  to  the  next 
sheet.  On  this  first  occasion,  March  5,  1901,  my  hand  wrote 
about  80  words  almost  entirely  in  Latin,  but  though  the  words 
are  consecutive  and  seem  to  make  phrases,  and  though  some  of 
the  phrases  seem  intelligible,  there  is  no  general  sense  in  the 
passage. 

"  Till  the  end  of  the  month,  with  a  very  few  exceptions,  I  con- 
tinued daily  to  write  fluently  in  Latin,  with  occasional  Greek 
words.  The  writing  was  not  intelligible  throughout,  but  it  im- 
proved and  was  very  different  from  the  mere  rubbish  with  which 
it  began.  Whole  phrases  were  intelligible,  and  in  spite  of 
blunders  of  every  description  the  general  drift  was  often  easily 
apparent.  The  actual  writing  was  my  own  normal  handwriting 
. . .  the  script  usually  filled  one  page,  that  is,  it  consisted  of  from 
70  to  90  words,  but  occasionally  the  impulse  to  write  continued 
after  the  page  was  full  and  I  then  took  a  second  piece  of  paper. 
The  end  of  the  impulse  to  write  was  often  signalized  by  the 
drawing  of  a  long  line.  After  the  first  two  or  three  times  of 
writing  I  never  read  what  had  been  written  till  the  end,  and 
though  I  continued  to  be  aware  of  the  particular  word,  or  per- 
haps two  words,  that  I  was  writing,  I  still  retained  no  recollec- 
tion of  what  I  had  just  written  and  no  general  notion  as  to  the 
meaning  of  the  whole 

"  Whether  I  write  in  light  or  dark,  I  do  not  look  at  the  paper. 
I  perceive  a  word  or  two,  but  never  understand  whether  it  makes 
sense  with  what  goes  before  . . .  when  the  script  is  finished  I  often 
cannot  say,  till  I  read  it,  what  language  has  been  used,  as  the  rec- 
ollection of  the  words  passes  away  with  extreme  rapidity 

This  corresponds  with  the  evanescent  memory  of  dreams, 
and  the  following  emphasizes  the  resemblance. 

"  I  am  sometimes  exceedingly  sleepy  during  the  production  of 
the  writing,  and  more  than  once  I  have  momentarily  lost  con- 
sciousness of  my  surroundings 

"  [NoTE. — It  is  not  easy  to  describe  the  writing  without  seem- 
ing to  assume  a  personality  on  the  part  of  the  supposed  writer, 
of  which  I  am  very  far  from  being  convinced.  But  it  is  con- 
venient to  use  such  expressions  as  '  the  supposed  writer,'  '  the 
control,'  or  '  the  scribe '  to  represent  the  motive  power  which 


674         Heteromatic  Script:  Mrs.  Verrall    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV. 

seems  to  the  owner  of  the  writing  hand  something  quite  separate 
from  his  normal  personality.] 

"  On  November  24,  1902 ...  I  got  very  sleepy  and  lost  con- 
sciousness, I  think,  in  the  middle :  the  writing  was  very  violent 
when  I  again  realized  what  I  was  doing  and  more  '  automatic ' 
than  usual.  Here,  too,  as  in  the  earlier  case,  there  purport  to 
be  more  communicators  than  one,  and  there  are  certainly  differ- 
ences of  hand-writing.  When  this  writing  was  over,  I  was  left 
with  a  feeling  of  fatigue,  and  some  discomfort  in  the  right  arm ; 
I  mention  this  as  it  is  the  only  occasion  on  which  anything  like 
a  disagreeable  feeling  was  associated  with  the  production  of  the 
script. 

"  The  next  time  that  I  went  to  sleep ...  I  had  arranged  with 
two  friends  that  they  should  sit  with  a  Planchette  at  the  same 
hour.  I  slept  only  for  a  moment,  and  when  I  woke  went  on  with 
the  automatic  writing  just  as  before.  The  words  then  written 
were :  '  It  has  helped  them  and  you  will  get  a  message  now  plain 
to  read.'  This  latter  statement  was  correct ;  a  message  written 
by  their  Planchette  was  perfectly  intelligible  to  me,  and  intro- 
duced names  quite  unknown  to  the  Planchette  writers 

"  Once ...  I  certainly  continued  writing  during  my  sleep ;  I 
was  interrupted  by  an  unexpected  visitor  who  found  me  writing. 
The  hand-writing  of  the  script  thus  produced  is  not  my  own, 
but  bears  a  likeness  to  that  of  Dr.  Sidgwick 

This  is  very  suggestive  of  Professor  Sidgwick  being  a  genu- 
ine control :  for  it's  a  sort  of  cross-correspondence  with  the  fact 
of  his  writing  through  Mrs.  Thompson.  Cf.  ante. 

"  On  five  occasions — besides  those  . . .  not  included  in  this 
paper — I  have  tried  to  obtain  writing  at  a  time  when  someone 
else  was  also  '  sitting.' —  On  four  out  of  these  five  occasions  it 
seemed  that  there  was  some  interest  in  the  results." 

These  experiences  of  Mrs.  Verrall  appear  very  faint  beside 
the  gorgeous  oriental  lights  and  sounds  and  thaumaturgy  of 
Stainton  Moses  or  even  beside  many  of  the  homely  but  vivid 
experiences  of  Mrs.  Piper;  but  probably  to  many  they  carry 
more  conviction;  and  the  subjects  with  which  they  deal, 
despite  their  quiet  trappings,  are  of  serious  importance. 

Mrs.  Verrall  got  a  few  drawings  which  reminded  her  of 
the  meaningless  pictures  often  seen  in  crystal  gazing,  and 
suggesting  to  me  the  phantasmagoria  preceding  sleep.  In 
fact  her  whole  experience,  like  so  much  in  the  experiences 
we  are  studying,  seems  closely  allied  with  dreams. 

The  handwriting  varies  a  good  deal,  as  in  Moses'  case  and 
Mrs.  Holland's,  but  has  much  less  definite  connection  with 


Ch.  XLII]    Mrs.  Verrall  and  Mrs.  Piper  Contrasted      675 

individualities.  In  fact  there  is  not  always  a  claim  of  indi- 
viduality in  a  writer,  though  there  generally  is,  and  a  few 
times  signatures  are  given. 

Mrs.  Verrall  says  (Pr.  XX,  28)  : 

"  It  is  quite  common  for  the  first  two  or  three  words  written 
on  each  occasion  to  have  no  connection  with  the  rest  of  the 
script;  they  seem  to  serve  as  a  sort  of  start,  while  the  thing, 
whatever  it  is,  is  getting  under  way.  It  is  seldom  that  two  or 
three  unintelligible  and  disconnected  words  are  found,  except  at 
the  beginnings." 

Mrs.  Piper's  script  was  apt  to  be  just  the  reverse  of  this. 
Mrs.  Verrall's  was  incoherent  while  she  was  getting  up 
steam;  Mrs.  Piper's,  while  steam  was  giving  out.  Mrs.  Ver- 
rall's preliminary  nonsense  corresponds  to  the  preliminary 
raps  so  frequent  in  telekinetic  telepsychosis.  Her  interpreta- 
tion, however,  is  not  analogous  to  "  getting  up  steam,"  but 
she  says  (Pr.  XX,  29) : 

"  A  parallel  is  to  be  found  in  some  experiments  made  by  my 
daughter  and  Mr.  Bayfield  in  table  tilting,  when  it  was  common 
for  the  first  few  words  to  have  no  connection  with  what  followed, 

and  often  to  be  in  a  different  language This  introductory 

rubbish  often  served  to  prevent  the  sitters  from  following  what 
was  being  produced  by  the  table,  and  we  usually  found  the  re- 
sults better  when  the  attention  of  the  sitters  had  been  distracted. 
Possibly  some  similar  object  is  attained  in  the  case  of  the  auto- 
matic writing  by  the  production  of  a  few  words  of  sheer  non- 
sense which  serve  to  occupy  the  attention  of  the  conscious  self, 
and  so  leave  the  subliminal  self  more  free  to  act." 

Again  a  contradiction  to  the  cases  where  concentration  of 
the  sitter's  mind  helps  the  results. 

The  languages  were  mainly  Greek,  Latin,  and  English. 
Mrs.  Verrall  knows  French  substantially  as  well  as  English, 
and  German,  Italian,  and  Spanish  fairly  well,  but  there  was 
barely  a  trace  of  any  modern  language  but  English.  It  seems 
fair  to  infer  that  the  languages  appeared  about  in  propor- 
tion to  the  degrees  in  which  they  occupied  her  habitual  atten- 
tion. Greek  and  Latin  she  taught,  English  she  used  pre- 
sumably for  most  of  her  writing — personal  and  for  publica- 
tion; the  other  languages  she  used  incidentally.  All  this,  so 
far  as  it  goes,  looks  as  if  the  script  were  but  the  echo  of 
herself. 


676         Eeteromatic  Script:  Mrs.  Verrall    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV. 
On  the  other  hand,  she  Bays  (Pr.  XX,  36) : 

"  The  vocabulary  and  phraseology  as  well  as  the  grammatical 
construction  of  the  ancient  languages  used  in  the  script  are  not 
such  as  I  should  myself  employ  if  I  were  deliberately  writing 
those  languages 

"A  considerable  number  of  words  occur  which  are  not  ex- 
tant, and  the  meaning  of  which  is  not  obvious  either  from  the 
context  or  the  form.  Many  of  these  are  probably  pure  inven- 
tions, but  some  of  them  are  used  with  a  curious  persistence,  even 
after  investigation  has  shown  that  they  have  no  existence." 

My  guess  is  that  her  mind  was  at  work,  and  also  a  larger 
mind,  of  which  her  mind  may  be  a  part.  The  larger  the 
mind,  so  long  as  its  processes  can  be  guessed  at  by  human 
standards,  the  more  apt  it  would  be  (wouldn't  it?)  to  coin 
words  from  the  mass  of  roots  floating  about  in  its  conscious- 
ness, and  make  original  constructions,  many  of  them  non- 
sensical. We  all  do  this  in  dreamy  moods  or  in  following 
rhythmic  sounds  like  those  of  a  railway  train.  She  says 
(p.  48)  : 

"  The  sententiousness  of  dreams — verbose  enunciation  of  the 
commonplace — appears  often,  e.g.,  '  Not  yet  is  the  fullness  of 
time — reaping  follows  the  full  sheaves,' . . . '  Many  harvests  go 
to  the  fulfilment  of  the  crop  of  promise.' " 

The  similarity  to  some  dream  effect  appears  on  almost 
every  page.  This  is  interesting  in  this  connection  (Pr.  XX, 
103-5) : 

"  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  script  expects  that  information 
may  be  conveyed  during  my  sleep  to  supplement  what  comes  by 

automatic  writing There  is  no  reason  to  think  that  in  my 

case  the  expectation  aroused  by  the  writing  produces  any  effect 
on  my  dreams 

"There  has  been  no  general  moral  advice  [Shades  of  Im- 
perator  and  Moses !  H.H.] ,  and  such  '  philosophical '  talk  as 
occurs  seems  to  refer  to  particular  philosophical  views  and  to  be 
meant  for  evidential  matter  rather  than  to  have  any  ethical  or 
didactic  intention. . . .  Parts  resemble  records  of  a  dream." 

Note  the  identity  of  the  following  experiences  with  those 
of  "the  condition  between  sleeping  and  waking": 

(Pr.XX,65-7) :  "  The  first  part  of  the  writing  of  March  1, 
1903,  consisted  of  scraps  of  hexameter  lines,  the  sort  of  rubbish 
that  one  might  produce  when  half  asleep It  is  not  easy 


Ch.  XLII]    Script  Puns,  Heteromatist  Does  Not  677 

always  to  distinguish . . .  classes,  as  the  reader  who  has  followed 
me  so  far  will  understand,  seeing  how  dream-like  and  confused 
are  the  utterances  of  the  script." 

(Pr.XX,59-62)  :  "  I  have  hardly  ever  made  a  pun  in  my  life ; 
I  do  not  easily  see  analogies  between  words,  and  I  am  seldom 
amused  by  comic  puns  or  interested  by  the  ancient  oracular  play 
upon  words.  But  it  is  otherwise  with  the  automatic  script.  It 
is  fond  of  punning  and  especially  of  punning  upon  names ;  it  is 
indeed  quite  like  an  ancient  oracle  in  its  desire  to  find  a  mean- 
ing in  a  name,  as  well  as  in  its  complete  disregard  for  the  laws 

of  philology The  scribe  adds  the  comment  '  you  write  nicely, 

though  there  is  a  lack  of  sense  owing  to  your  want  of  faith.' 
[This  note  is  very  frequent.  H.H.]  ...  I  have ...  no  interest  in 
derivations,  no  sympathy  with  fanciful  symbolism  of  any  sort. 
. . .  This  is  one  of  many  cases  where  there  seems  no  point  of  con- 
tact between  my  normal  self  and  the  productions  of  the  scribe. 
. . .  Another  characteristic  of  the  script  not  shared  by  my  normal 
self  is  a  tendency  to  break  out  into  verse. ...  I  am  capable,  how- 
ever, of  producing  some  kind  of  verse,  when  in  a  condition  be- 
tween sleeping  and  waking." 

(Pr.XX,75-80) :  "  The  script  of  June  27,  1901,  was  signed  as 
follows:  Two  drawings  of  curved  objects;  then  the  words  'or  a 
gourd.'  Then  three  drawings  representing  apparently  (1)  a 
gourd,  (2)  a  cross,  (3)  the  horns  or  ears  of  an  animal;  then  the 
words  '  Moses  not  the  prophet ' ;  then  a  line  between  two  brackets 
and  the  name  '  Johann.'. . .  Another  suggestion  has  been  made  to 
me  that  in  the  Latin  cross,  taken  in  conjunction  with  '  horns ' 
and  '  Moses  not  the  prophet,'  are  to  be  found  allusions  to  W. 
Stainton  Moses  and  his  well-known  'control'  Imperator.  In 
that  case  there  seems  no  explanation  for  the  gourd  or  the  name 
John My  script  on  July  21,  1903,  stated  plainly  that  a  cer- 
tain cross — here  described  as  a  decorative  Greek  cross — was  the 

mark  of  Kector But  Dr.  Hodgson  had  no  recollection  of  any 

such  drawing.  I  therefore  supposed  the  conjunction  of  Rector's 
name  and  a  cross  to  be  a  reminiscence  of  my  knowledge  of  the 
Stainton  Moses  phenomena 

"  That  the  distinction  between  the  Latin  cross  of  Imperator 
and  the  Greek  cross  of  Rector — not  consciously  observed  by  me 
was  recognized  by  my  subliminal  self  is  clear,  not  only  from  the 
statement  that  the  decorative  Greek  cross  is  the  sign  of  Rector 
(July  21,  1903,  posuit  signum  suum  ipse),  but  also  from  the 
conjunction  in  the  script  of  August  26,  1902,  of  the  Latin  cross 
with  the  capital  I,  which  obviously  stands  for  Imperator." 

Mrs.  Verrall  seems  to  tend  strongly  to  account  for  the  script 
as  an  echo  from  her  own  mind  in  all  cases  where  that  is 
possible,  but  there  seem  to  be  not  a  few  cases  where  it  is  not — 
here,  for  instance  (Pr.  XX,  82-3) : 


678         Heteromatic  Script:  Mrs.  Verrall    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

"The  owner  of  the  Greek  cross,  whether  we  call  him  Rector 
or  not,  is  a  specially  successful  communicator  and  seems  to  have 
a  particular  interest  in  Mrs.  Piper  and  Dr.  Hodgson ;  the  owner 
of  the  transverse  cross,  on  the  other  hand,  makes  efforts  to  pro- 
duce evidential  matter,  but  with  very  little  success." 

She  by  no  means  is  an  advocate  for  "the  script"  in  any 
particular,  e.g.  (Pr.  XX,  85)  : 

"  When  the  hand  remarks  that '  this  is  a  clue,'  or  that '  this  is 
verifiable/  after  producing  something  quite  vague  or  hopelessly 
confused,  we  can  only  express  a  pious  hope  that  the  future  may 
justify  the  writer's  claim.  Only  on  three  of  the  eleven  occasions 
when  success  was  claimed  in  this  way  was  the  claim  justified." 

But  this  (Pr.  XX,  87-92)  looks  very  much  like  outside  agency : 

"  Three  times  the  script  asserted  that  it  had  made  an  effort  to 
which  I  had  not  responded,  and  twice  it  complained  in  more 
general  terms  that  it  had  wanted  to  say  something,  but  had  been 
prevented  by  me. . . .  On  the  first  occasion  . . .  my  arm  ached  be- 
fore I  sat  for  writing,  as  it  had  done  earlier  in  the  day,  and  it  is 
likely  that  with  more  experience  I  should  have  recognized  this 
aching  as  a  desire  on  the  part  of  my  hand  to  write ;  that  is  prob- 
ably the  explanation  of  the  opening  words  of  the  script :  veni 
hodiemo  nondum  parata  eras,  '  I  came  to-day  but  you  were  not 
yet  ready.'  On  another  occasion,  when  I  wrote  in  obedience  to 
an  impulse,  May  3,  1901,  the  first  words  were  a  question  as  to 
why  I  had  not  written  the  day  before  when  the  hand  wanted  to 
write,  and  a  warning  that  it  was  difficult  if  I  refused.  I  felt  a 
strong  desire  to  write  the  day  before  while  I  was  at  a  committee 
meeting,  but  naturally  had  not  been  able  to  yield  to  it.  On  two 
of  the  five  occasions  when  I  apparently  failed  to  respond  I  was 

entirely  unaware  of  any  special  sensation There  are  a  very 

considerable  number  of  remarks  throughout  the  script  addressed 
to  me  and  urging  me  to  '  go  on,'  or  to  '  wait  for  a  result,'  or  to 
'  try  again,'  or  to  '  leave  off  now.' 

"  At  first  the  script  expressed  a  good  deal  of  impatience  with 
my  stupidity,  wilful  or  otherwise :  '  I  should  like  to  speak,  but 
you  will  not  let  me ' ;  or  o  mora,  ingrata  tibi  canam,  '  O  the 
delay,  I  should  waste  my  words  on  you ' ;  or  again,  '  how  can  I  ? 
help,  can't  you,  combination  is  the  best.'  Once  after  reproaching 
me  with  not  writing  earlier,  as  it  had  long  wanted  to  tell  me 
something,  it  went  on:  'you  cant  hear  tonight.  Your  head  is 
full.'  Yet  the  next  day  it  began :  '  Why  did  you  stop  yesterday  ? 
It  was  interesting.  But  you  did  not  understand.'  In  time, 
however,  the  scribe  seems  to  have  realized  that  the  difficulties 
were  not  created  wilfully  by  me,  for  its  impatience  unmistakably 
lessens  with  experience,  and  though  it  still  tells  me  sometimes 
that  the  fault  is  mine,  it  seems  to  recognize  that  the  fault  is  not 


Ch.  XLII]     Controls'  Advice  to  Mrs.  Verrdll  679 

intentional.  '  This  is  not  right,  but  you  can  do  no  more,'  is  the 
latest  expression  of  reproach,  a  very  considerable  modification  of 

the  incisive  remarks  of  earlier  days Six  weeks  later  the  script 

began  with  one  of  its  rolling  mysterious  sentences  that,  like  the 
poetry  of  dreams  [Here  they  are  again !  In  any  such  comments 
which  may  seem  trivial,  I  have  a  purpose  that,  if  not  obvious, 
will  appear  in  time.  H.H.],  appear  impressive  until  you  take  a 
nearer  view,  though  here,  judged  with  the  context,  it  may  not  be 
wholly  meaningless :  '  Unused  of  old  forewarned  but  not  exempt 
— none  is.  But  we  learn  like  you.  It  is  hard.'  Then  it  goes  on 
in  Latin:  monstro  tibi  quod  vix  possim;  incredibile  sane  verum 
quidem.  quod  si  credos  maiora  sequuntur,  and  concludes: 
'  That  is  all  I  can  do.  You  understand  better  tonight.  Go  on.' 
And  henceforth,  though  the  encouragement  is  still  sparingly 

bestowed,  the  reproaches  almost  entirely  cease An  attitude  of 

belief  on  the  part  of  the  person  addressed  is  constantly  recom- 
mended by  the  script.  Patience  is  desired,  perseverance  is  ad- 
vised, careful  recording  of  all  that  is  written,  even  if  not  intelli- 
gible, is  often  urged;  but  the  most  frequently  recurring  injunc- 
tion is  to  '  believe ' — not  to  attach  credence  to  a  particular  state- 
ment, but  to  have  confidence,  generally  speaking,  in  the  authen- 
ticity of  the  phenomena,  and  to  allow  the  mind  to  assume  a 
receptive  attitude. Although  I  was  not  aware  of  any  partic- 
ular change  in  my  attitude  between  the  end  of  August  and  the 
end  of  September  of  that  year,  the  script  seems  to  have  been 
satisfied,  for  on  Sept.  22,  1903,  after  referring  to  certain  events 
which  would — and  did — occur,  it  went  on :  '  Then  this  writing 
of  mine  to  you  will  bring  conviction.  Not  to  you — you  have  it.' 
Since  that  time  no  further  reference  to  my  skepticism  was  made 
till  on  August  14,  1904,  it  reproached  me  for  not  opening  the 
'  sealed  envelope '  in  the  words :  '  And  you  will  not  look — Faith 
is  not  yours.'  So  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  ascertain,  these 
remarks  of  the  script  do  not  correspond  with  any  subjective 
feeling  on  my  own  part. . . .  Looking  through  [my]  diary  I  find 
there  is  recorded  in  it  a  distinctly  increasing  tendency  towards 
what  I  suppose  the  script  would  call  '  belief,'  that  is,  to  a  dis- 
position to  attach  value  to  the  communications  of  the  script 
and  to  attribute  them  to  some  external  cause  rather  than  to  my 
own  subliminal  self." 

Such  unquestionably  has  been  the  general  experience  of 
the  most  active  members  of  the  S.  P.  E.  And  yet  on  the 
next  page  (Pr.  XX,  93f.)  the  cautious  writer  says: 

"The  directions  as  to  writing  are  positive  and  negative;  I 
am  told  not  to  write  for  a  certain  time  or  to  write  regularly,  or 
to  write  on  some  special  day. ...  I  have  no  reason  to  see  in  them 
anything  more  than  the  reflection  of  the  impression  which  I 
may  very  well  have  had  that  the  writing  was  poor,  or  that  I  had 


680         Heieromaiic  'Script:  Mrs.  Verrall    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

been  doing  a  good  deal  of  it  lately Twice . . .  out  of  four  times 

the  direction  to  write  during  a  certain  period  proved  fruitful." 

Probably  this  was  not  materially  more  or  less  than  the 
average  chance. 

Dreams  are  usually  built  from  trivial  circumstances,  and 
while  perhaps  not  experienced  in  the  subliminal  conscious- 
ness, are  reported  in  the  script. 

(Pr.XX,121-3)  :  " '  A  cradle  with  a  phial  of  unguent  holds  the 
infant  god.  To-day  the  Holy  One  of  Holies  asks  and  obtains 
light  for  the  faithful.  Who  in  the  Council  of  God  beholds  the 
glory?  or  Who  in  the  Council  beholds  the  glory  of  God? — with 
tinklings  all  is  joyous;  let  the  bystanders  too  sing.'. . .  The  script 
was  written ...  on  the  Festival  of  the  Purification,  or  Presenta- 
tion of  Christ  in  the  Temple,  '  Candlemas  Day.'  Some  of  the 
associations  with  this  day  are  certainly  represented  in  the  script, 
though  the  opening  phrases,  at  least  at  first  sight,  are  more  sug- 
gestive of  a  Nativity  than  of  the  Purification. . . .  On  the  whole  I 
am  disposed  to  attribute  the  whole  performance  to  vague  recol- 
lections suggested  by  the  date  at  the  head  of  the  paper.  It  is 
true  that  the  Festival  of  the  Purification  is  not  a  Nativity,  but  it 
is  also  true  that  I  am  completely  unlearned  in  matters  of  ritual, 
and  had  certainly  never  thought  of  distinguishing  between  their 
appropriate  ceremonial. ...  A  brother  of  my  mother's  was  born 
on  February  2,  and  I  have  all  my  life  been  familiar  with  a  mini- 
ature painted  by  his  mother,  representing  him  as  a  child  with 
two  doves.  It  is  possible  that  this  early  association  of  a  birthday 
with  the  Feast  of  the  Purification  may  be  responsible  for  the 
introduction  of  the  child  and  cradle  into  the  script.  It  is  possi- 
ble also  that  the  notion  of  a  birthday  was  introduced  by  tele- 
pathic association  with  Mrs.  Forbes.  I  was  writing  simultane- 
ously with  her,  and  I  found  subsequently  that  February  2  was 
her  husband's  birthday ;  so  that  the  date  February  2  undoubtedly 
was  associated  in  her  mind  with  birthday  ceremonies." 

Speaking  of  a  long  Orphic  Greek  passage,  she  says  (Pr.  XX, 
128): 

"  I  can  only  repeat  that  I  cannot  conceive  myself  under  any 
normal  circumstances  using  the  words  or  entertaining  the  ideas 
of  this  curious  fragment.  Till  my  attention  was  attracted  by  the 
script,  I  had  no  knowledge  of  Orphism  beyond  what  must  be  ac- 
quired in  the  course  of  classical  reading  by  one  who  has  always 
been  interested  in  Platonism,  the  Platonism  of  Plato,  that  is  to 
say,  and  not  Neo-Platonism  or  any  other  imitation  or  modifica- 
tion, ancient  or  modern,  of  Plato." 


Ch.  XLII]  The  Script  and  Dreams  681 

The  following  (Pr.  XX,  135-7)  is  the  exact  opposite  of 
Stainton  Moses's  impression: 

"  But  I  should  be  giving  a  thoroughly  false  idea  of  the  con- 
tents of  the  script  if  I  allowed  it  to  be  supposed  that  the  greater 
part,  even  of  this  verifiable  matter,  appears  in  the  form  of  com- 
munications from  supposed  discarnate  spirits.  The  information 
is  for  the  most  part  stated  without  any  color  other  than  is  made 
inevitable  by  the  personal  form  of  the  phraseology.  '  Tell  So  and 
So,'  or  more  frequently,  '  Someone  ought  to  remember  this.'. . . 
Often  the  incident  is  related  without  any  suggestion  of  its  con- 
nection with  other  portions  of  the  script  or  any  clue  to  its  mean- 
ing. . . .  That  an  intimate  connection  exists  between  the  con- 
tents of  the  automatic  writing  and  my  own  mind  ...  is  shown  in 
the  languages  used,  in  quotations  from  authors  known  to  me, 
in  allusions  to  literary  and  other  subjects  familiar  to  me,  and 

in  many  other  ways The  manner  of  expression  seems  to  show 

that  the  script  is  referring  to  my  own  actual  knowledge,  exactly 
as  a  third  person  might  do ;  there  are  also  some  cases  where  the 
script  shows  revived  memories  beyond  the  range  of  my  conscious 
recollection ;  there  are  a  few  traces  of  reference  to  things  thought 
of  by  me  just  before  writing;  and  there  are  some  traceable  con- 
nections between  my  dreams  and  the  automatic  writing." 

Here  (p.  139)  is  another  comparison  with  dreams: 

"  I  have . . .  watched  carefully  to  see  if  in  the  automatic  writ- 
ing, as  often  in  dreams,  I  could  trace  reminiscences  of  recent 
events  or  impressions.  But  to  my  surprise ...  in  the  whole  306 
pieces  of  writing  I  can  find  only  five  occasions  where  the  writing 
distinctly  refers  to  something  that  had  occurred  shortly  before 
its  production." 

It  is  hard  to  determine  the  general  experience  regarding 
some  features  of  dreams.  Touching  this  one,  my  dream  ex- 
periences correspond  with  Mrs.  Verrall's  regarding  the  writ- 
ing; they  are  shaped  very  little  by  actual  events  whose  con- 
nection is  traceable. 

The  connection  of  the  writings  with  dreams  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  more  intimate  than  that  of  any  other  set  of 
these  strange  phenomena.  Though  the  writing  occasionally 
said  something  about  truth  to  be  ascertained  in  dreams,  ap- 
parently nothing  came  of  it. 

(Pr.XX,156)  :  "  I  think  beyond  dispute  that  the  script  was 
influenced  by  the  desire  of  my  husband  unknown  to  me,  that  it 
should  produce  a  certain  phrase  consisting  of  three  Greek  words, 


682         Heteromatic  Script:  Mrs.  Verrall    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

for  it  seems  to  have  made  a  large  number  of  attempts — with 
varying  success — to  reproduce  these  words." 

Before  her  absolute  candor,  it  is  reasonable  to  accept  her 
estimate  that  half  these  would-be  evidential  references 
to  her  husband  in  the  script  are  correct.  This  circum- 
stance seems  to  indicate  that  the  main  influence  in  the  script 
is  external:  for  if  it  were  all  mainly  the  product  of  Mrs. 
VerralPs  subliminal  self  (please  try  to  remember  the  sense 
in  which  I  use  the  term),  the  proportion  of  successes  would 
probably  be  larger.  Assuming  that  Mrs.  Verrall's  view  is 
correct,  what  seems  to  be  proved  is  some  feeble  telepathy 
between  Professor  and  Mrs.  Verrall,  and  a  faint  echo  of  Mrs. 
Verrall's  first  impression  by  the  script. 

On  the  other  hand,  Mrs.  Verrall  says  (Pr.  XX,  184)  of 
the  following  cases : 

"No  one  of  these  cases  taken  alone  is  of  much  evidential 
value,  but  the  three  taken  together  perhaps  show  some  reflection 
in  the  script  of  thoughts  and  actions  telepathically  or  otherwise 
not  normally  conveyed." 

This  is  a  much  more  moderate  view  than  I  take.  To  me 
the  passages  very  strongly  indicate  telepathy,  unless  some 
other  communication  has  escaped  attention. 

Mrs.  Verrall  and  Mrs.  Dew  Smith  ("  Alice  ")  were  in  the 
habit  of  sitting  simultaneously,  but  at  a  distance,  in  search 
of  correspondence  in  their  script.  Here  is  Mrs.  Verrall's 
account  slightly  condensed  (Pr.  XX,  183-4)  : 

"(a)  June  21,  1903  (Switzerland).  'What  is  Alice  doing? 
She  has  found  a  house  now — ask.  A  little  house  near  a  wood, 
with  a  sunny  garden  on  one  side.'  I  had  not  seen  Mrs.  Dew 
Smith  since  April  and  knew  nothing  of  her  intentions :  at  the 
end  of  July,  on  returning  from  Switzerland,  I  heard  from  her 
that  she  had  been  wanting  to  find  a  small  house  in  the  New 
Forest  with  a  garden,  but  had  no  particular  house  in  view. 

"  (fc)  Aug.  31,  1903.  '  Tell  Alice  from  me  the  pen  (or  pin) 
will  be  found  and  can  then  be  given  back.  But  she  is  too 
anxious.'  I  was  uncertain  whether  the  word  was  pen  or  pin, 
and  asked  Mrs.  Dew  Smith  when  I  saw  her  on  September  1, 
whether  she  had  lost  either  a  pen  or  a  pin.  She  said  that  she 
had  not.  But  the  next  day  she  remembered  and  told  me  that  on 
Aug.  31  she  missed  a  little  parcel  of  pens  which  she  valued  and 
about  which  she  had  written  to  make  inquiries.  The  pens  were 
eventually  found,  but  not  till  some  months  later. 


Ch.  XLII]    Mrs.  Dew  Smith.     Childe  Roland  683 

"  (c)  Dec.  23,  1904.  '  Now  give  this  message  to  Alice  Dew. 
Her  plan  is  a  good  one  and  she  should  carry  it  out  at  once:  I 
know  there  is  some  disapproval  but  that  will  pass.  She  is  quite 
right  in  her  view.  Tell  her  that.  Tell  her  with  emphasis.  She 
is  to  do  it  &  not  be  deterred  by  their  criticism.  She  sat  alone  last 
night  late  but  I  could  not  make  her  hear.  She  will  remember  the 
little  tinkling  bell.  That  will  prove  my  truth.'  In  a  letter  of 
December  27,  Mrs.  Dew  Smith  told  me . . .  that  for  the  last  six 
months  her  mind  had  been  full  of  a  plan  for  building  a  cottage 
. . .  and  that  all  her  friends  opposed  her  plans  and  criticised  the 

scheme She . . .  said  that  not  being  alone  she  had  only  once 

since  leaving  town  made  automatic  experiments.  She  had  un- 
usual difficulty  and  obtained  nothing She  also  said  that  she 

had  a  strong  impression  of  hearing  a  little  bell  outside  the  house 
one  evening . . .  but  was  not  sure  that  it  was  on  the  evening 
mentioned." 

There's  possibly  a  little  touch  of  prophecy  about  the  pens. 
October  9,  1892,  while  Mrs.  Verrall  was  away  from  home, 
the  script  gave  (Pr.  XX,  189)  : 

"  '  To  the  dark  tower  came  who  ?  ask  him  who  ?  and  where  ? 
The  tower  was  dark  &  cold,  but  we  all  loved  it.  He  will  remem- 
ber write  regularly — there  is  truth  in  this.' " 

And  on  Mrs.  Verrall's  return  it  appeared  that  Professor 
Verrall  had  been  reading  Browning's  Childe  Roland.  There 
are  many  similar  telepathic  indications.  The  success  with 
their  daughter  and  Mrs.  Sidgwick  and  her  brothers  was  not 
BO  great,  and  so  with  other  friends  (p.  203),  all  of  which 
corresponds  with  the  degree  of  intimacy,  but,  on  the  other 
hand  (pp.  198-9),  with  energetic  members  of  S.  P.  R.  the 
proportion  rises  again,  and  it  is  highest  with  Hodgson,  proba- 
bly the  most  energetic  of  them  all.  This  suggests  an  effect 
from  their  deep  interest  in  the  subject  and  constant  occupa- 
tion with  it — a  sort  of  telepathy. 

Mrs.  Verrall's  enthusiasm  and  ingenuity  enable  her  to  find 
many  more  indications  of  verification  than  my  slow  wits  can 
recognize;  but  that  fact,  however  viewed,  does  not  affect  the 
suggestions  coming  from  the  proportions  in  the  various 
classes  of  allusions  named  above. 

There  were  many  apparent  prophecies  that  came  to  noth- 
ing, but  some  were  more  successful.  Here  is  one  (Pr.  XX, 
322-3)  : 


684         Heteromatic  Script:  Mrs.  Verrall    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

"  On  September  4th,  1901,  at  the  end  of  a  long  piece  of  writ- 
ing, the  script,  in  quite  a  different  hand,  wrote :  '  Madment 
Maidment  Evan  awnsley  November  1857.'  And  on  September 
7th  it  wrote:  ' MAIMENTIS WITHIN,  on  the  right-hand  side 
as  you  look — the  window  is  behind,  so  it  is  not  very  plain  to 
read.  But  he  knows  it.' 

"  On  September  30th,  or  possibly  September  28th,  I  went  with 
my  hostess  to  a  shop  in  Winchester,  and  noticed  the  name  '  Maid- 
ment,' not  outside  the  shop,  but  on  a  paper  bag  hanging  up  in- 
side the  shop  on  the  right-hand  wall.  The  shop-window  was  be- 
hind me,  when  I  was  within  the  shop,  but  the  name  was  quite 
plain  to  read.  At  the  time  I  did  not  connect  it  with  anything; 
it  was  only  after  my  return  from  Winchester  that,  on  reading 
through  the  copies  of  the  script  and  finding  the  words  '  Maiment 
is  within,'  I  remembered  having  noticed  the  name  Maidment 
within  a  shop  at  Winchester.  I  then  remembered  the  reading  of 
a  letter  from  someone  called  Rawnsley,  but  the  date  '  November 
1857 '  has  no  discoverable  connection  with  this  or  any  other 
incident  known  to  me." 

Mrs.  Verrall  gives  several  other  instances.  She  prefers  to 
call  them  "  anticipations  "  rather  than  prophecies. 

Mrs.  Verrall's  account  of  the  psychology  and  physiology  of 
the  writing  seemed  to  deserve  so  much  space  that  there  has 
been  little  left  for  its  substance.  But  we  shall  have  a  little 
more  when  we  come  to  the  subject  of  Cross-Correspondences. 


CHAPTER  XLIII 
THE  PIPER-HODGSON  CONTROL  IN  AMERICA 

IN  December,  1905,  Hodgson  died,  and  we  come  now  to 
what  profess  to  be  a  series  of  manifestations  from  his  post- 
carnate  self.  The  principal  ones  appear  in  three  papers  in 
Pr.  XXIII,  and  are  admirably  edited;  the  first  by  Professor 
James,  the  second  by  Mr.  Piddington  and  Mrs.  Sidgwick,  and 
the  third  by  Sir  Oliver  Lodge.  Wherever  the  strange  material 
came  from,  this  account  we  are  about  to  consider  is  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  productions  in  all  literature.  I  grieve 
at  the  necessity  of  condensing  it.  Those  who  care  for  the 
strange,  perhaps  instructive,  and  certainly  moving  experience 
of  reading  it  complete,  can  obtain  it  in  Pr.  Part  LVIII. 

In  considering  these  reports,  we  shall  be  aided  by  a  better 
knowledge  of  the  manner  of  man  Hodgson  was.  He  was  born 
in  Melbourne,  Australia,  in  1855,  graduated  at  the  Melbourne 
University,  which  subsequently  gave  him  an  LL.D.,  went  to 
Cambridge  to  study  philosophy,  and  took  honors  in  1881. 
Mrs.  Sidgwick  says,  in  a  memoir  in  Pr.  XIX,  356f. : 

"It  was  characteristic  of  him  that,  baring  thus  qualified  for 
a  degree,  his  friends  had  some  difficulty  in  persuading  him  to 
take  it,  because  the  ceremony  involved  kneeling  to  the  Vice- 
Chancellor,  and  he  did  not  wish  to  bend  the  knee  to  any  man." 

He  studied  for  a  time  at  Jena,  then  lectured  in  University 
Extension  courses  in  England,  and  upon  Spencer  at  Cam- 
bridge. Mrs.  Sidgwick  says  (p.  357) : 

"  But  he  was  not  consciously  a  follower  of  Herbert  Spencer 
or  of  any  other  philosopher.  Indeed  he  was  always  a  man  of 
great  independence  of  mind,  with  an  almost  inconceivable  dis- 
like of  following  others.  It  was,  I  suppose,  to  give  relief  to  this 
feeling,  and  as  a  symbol  of  his  desire  to  take  an  independent 
line,  that  he  adopted  while  at  Cambridge  an  evening  dress  suit 
of  brown  cloth  instead  of  the  ordinary  black  one.  This  becom- 
ing but  eccentric  costume  he  discontinued  after  some  years, 

685 


686      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

realizing,  doubtless,  that  it  was  not  worth  while  expending  en- 
ergy in  diverging  from  custom  in  unimportant  details." 

At  Cambridge,  while  a  student,  he  formed  an  enduring 
friendship  with  Henry  Sidgwick,  and  was  one  of  the  small 
group  whose  names  appear  in  the  first  published  list  of  mem- 
bers of  the  S.  P.  E. 

In  1884  the  Society  sent  him  to  India  to  investigate  Madame 
Blavatsky,  and  his  report  in  Pr.  Ill  showed  her  up  completely. 
It  was  especially  while  in  India  that  he  became  an  expert  in 
conjuring  tricks.  He  also  became  an  expert  in  handwriting. 

His  work  was  almost  entirely  destructive  of  fraud  and 
error  (see  paper  on  Mai-observation  and  Loss  of  Memory  in 
Pr.  IV,  and  one  on  Imitations  by  Conjuring  of  Phenomena 
sometimes  attributed  to  Spirit  Agency,  in  Pr.  VIII),  until 
he  met  Mrs.  Piper's  phenomena  in  1887,  when  he  went  to 
America  as  secretary  of  the  American  S.  P.  R.  As  we  have 
already  seen,  he  began  observing  those  phenomena  with 
the  skeptical  mind  developed  by  his  experience  of  fraud  and 
error,  soon  accepted  their  genuineness,  and  ended  by  giving 
them  the  spiritistic  interpretation. 

Abundant  reasons  will  appear  for  obtruding  a  word  regard- 
ing my  own  acquaintance  with  Hodgson.  It  began  through 
common  friends  in  Boston  not  long  after  his  arrival  in 
America.  I  always  knew  him  as  full  of  life,  work,  and  ami- 
ability, but  there  is  one  feature  of  his  life  which  is  of  great 
importance  in  connection  with  his  work,  that  involves  a  refer- 
ence to  the  less  cheerful  side  every  life  must  have. 

Hodgson  was  received  hospitably  by  some  of  the  most  con- 
servative people  in  conservative  Boston;  but  he  was  not  a 
conservative  man,  and,  as  Mrs.  Sidgwick  has  indicated,  did 
not  wear  conservative  clothes.  Moreover,  his  work  was  not 
of  a  kind  that  appeals  to  conservative  people,  and  was  asso- 
ciated with  general  vague  ideas  of  fraud.  The  result  of  all 
these  influences  was  that  not  a  few  places  in  Boston  which 
at  first  knew  Hodgson,  gradually  came  to  know  him  not.  I 
have  stated  this  fact  to  give  due  weight  to  the  contrasting 
and,  in  our  study,  most  important  fact  that,  as  he  reached  his 
conviction  of  the  relations  of  humanity  with  a  broader  and 
better  life  after  this  one,  his  character  began  to  grow,  until 


Ch.  XLIII]    Hodgson's  Experiences  and  Character         687 

he  came  to  hold  a  broader  and  higher  place  in  the  regard  of 
his  neighbors  than  he  had  ever  held.  One  of  the  best  known 
of  them,  who  had  lost  touch  with  him,  but  recovered  it,  said 
to  me  of  his  change  of  belief  (which  was  not  entirely  indorsed 
by  the  speaker) :  "  It  made  him  a  saint."  At  the  Tavern 
Club  he  grew  from  a  man  viewed  perhaps  at  times  a  little 
askance,  into  one  of  the  best  beloved — in  fact,  from  the 
printed  record  of  the  memorial  meeting,  where  noted  men 
of  ordinarily  studied  speech  unreservedly  poured  out  their 
sorrow  at  their  loss  of  "  Dick,"  and  their  joy  in  remembering 
him,  it  might  well  be  inferred  that  he  was  indeed  the  best 
beloved. 

Yet,  though  a  saint,  he  was,  as  Mr.  Piddington  hints  be- 
low, of  his  church  militant,  and  when  he  came  to  believe  that 
the  ostensible  words  of  Imperator  and  his  companions,  espe- 
cially those  relating  to  the  well-being  of  the  medium  and  the 
preservation  of  the  light,  had  a  more  than  earthly  sanction, 
if  anybody  went  counter  to  their  injunctions,  he  let  nothing 
impede  the  full  expression  of  what  he  felt  to  be  righteous 
indignation.  He  regarded  himself  as  high  priest  in  a  sacred 
temple,  and,  despite  his  great  and  many  virtues,  was  not 
entirely  exempt  from  faults  against  which  all  priesthoods 
have  had  to  struggle.  Yet  he  was  a  very  modern  and  genial 
saint;  he  was  no  ascetic;  nothing  human  was  alien  from 
him;  he  had  perfect  health  and  enjoyed  all  things,  but  was 
temperate  in  the  things  where  men  are  least  apt  to  be  tem- 
perate. He  was  a  very  valiant  trencherman,  but  when  the 
Imperator  gang  put  him  on  a  vegetable  diet,  he  stuck  to  it 
religiously,  though  copiously;  and  he  submitted,  too,  to  other 
mortifications  of  the  flesh  and  spirit  which  the  guides  in 
whom  he  believed  enjoined  upon  him.  But  no  mortifications 
checked  the  buoyancy  of  his  nature.  Mr.  Piddington  notes 
(Pr.  XIX,  363f.) : 

"  He  died  playing  a  game,  and  in  the  circumstance  of  his 
death  there  was  nothing  inappropriate, — I  had  almost  said  that 
it  was  characteristic 

"  Society  in  the  conventional  sense  had  no  attractions  for  him 
[but  he  was  made  at  home  in  some  of  the  best  and  least  accessi- 
ble. H.H.],  and  each  summer  found  him  a  delighted  and  a 
welcome  guest  among  a  circle  of  intimate  friends  in  the  Adi- 
rondack Mountains  or  at  Bar  Harbor.  At  Putnam's  Camp  in 


688      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

the  Adirondacks  especially  he  could  indulge  to  the  full  his  pleas- 
ure in  the  companionship  of  children.  He  loved  children — big 
and  little — and  they  him.  With  them  he  became  a  boy  again. 
He  led  their  games,  and  the  first  to  tire  was  never  Hodgson. 
When  he  died,  the  first  thought  of  more  than  one  parent  was  not 
of  their  own  loss,  but  'What  will  our  children  do  without 
him? ' 

"  Once  his  mind  was  made  up,  he  became  constitutionally  un- 
able to  appreciate  another  point  of  view,  and  his  strong  convic- 
tions were  accompanied  by  an  almost  righteous  indignation  at 
the  perversity  of  the  other  fellow. ...  If  he  played,  or  wrote,  or 
talked  for  victory  with  excessive  zeal,  I  do  not  believe  for  one 
moment  that  egotism  was  the  cause.  He  knew  his  side  was  in 
the  right,  and  his  plain  duty  was  to  make  that  side  prevail:  a 
refreshing  trait  in  the  indifferent  days  when  we  lazily  incline 
to  hold  that  there  is  so  much  to  be  said  for  any  side  of  a  ques- 
tion that  it  matters  little  which  gains  the  day. . . .  He  must,  so  it 
seems  to  me,  have  had  his  moments  when  with  the  Psalmist  he 
might  have  cried :  '  Of  thy  goodness  slay  mine  enemies :  and  de- 
stroy all  them  that  vex  my  soul.'  But,  mark  you,  as  with  the 
Psalmist  so  with  him:  his  enemies  were  always  the  Lord's  ene- 
mies too 

"  Still  there  was  a  very  tender  side  to  his  character,  which 
perhaps  came  out  most  fully  in  his  intercourse  with  those  who, 
raw  from  some  recent  bereavement,  came  for  hope  or  consolation 
to  him. ...  To  such  as  these  he  gave  lavishly  of  his  time,  his 

counsel  and  his  sympathy Many  of  them  poured  out  their 

hearts  to  him  without  restraint ;  and  he,  though  naturally  a  man 
of  deep  reserve  where  his  innermost  emotions  were  concerned, 
would,  repaying  confidence  with  confidence,  reveal  to  them  his 
own  most  intimate  experiences  and  convictions,  in  the  hope  of 
thereby  lightening  the  darkness  or  assuaging  the  bitterness  of 
their  despondency.  And  he  won  not  only  their  confidence  but 
their  gratitude  also,  and  often  their  affection. 

"  His  failings,  such  as  they  were,  were  the  outcome  of  his  in- 
tense earnestness.  His  virtues  were  those  of  a  noble  type  of  man." 


And  yet,  despite  the  tenacity  Mr.  Piddington  attributes  to 
him,  he  changed  from  one  of  the  most  destructive  critics  of 
the  spiritistic  hypothesis  into  one  of  its  most  powerful  sup- 
porters. 

This  happy,  helpful,  saintly  soul  is  alleged  to  speak  to  us 
through  Mrs.  Piper,  from  the  emancipated  and  illuminated 
life  that  he  had  looked  forward  to  with  eagerness — such 
eagerness  that  he  was  impatient  to  leave  even  the  life  here 
which,  in  spite  of  his  share  of  disappointment  and  loneliness, 


Ch.  XLIII]    Rector  First  Speaks  for  Hodgson  689 

his  temperament,  and  latterly  his  faith,  had  made  an  excep- 
tionally happy  one. 

This  impatience  of  his  brings  up  something  that  I  shall 
have  more  to  say  about  later — there  being  possible  a  degree 
of  certainty  regarding  a  future  life  that  would  interfere  with 
the  usefulness  and  happiness  of  this  one.  Hodgson's  cer- 
tainty had  no  such  bad  results,  but  probably  the  reason  is 
that  this  very  certainty  kept  him  hard  at  work,  though  it 
was  in  the  effort  to  unravel  the  mysteries  of  the  life  he  be- 
lieved in  and  longed  to  escape  to.  Not  all  who  might  have 
that  certainty  could  find  similar  occupation,  and  what 
amounted  to  such  a  certainty  has  disinclined  myriads  of  men 
from  any  occupation  at  all. 

On  December  20,  1905,  while  Hodgson  was  playing  hand- 
ball at  the  Rowing  Club  in  Boston,  his  heart  failed  and  he 
fell  dead.  Eight  days  later,  says  James  (Pr.  XXIII,  2-4) : 

"  a  message  purporting  to  come  from  him  was  delivered  in  a 
trance  of  Mrs.  Piper's,  and  she  has  hardly  held  a  sitting  since 
then  without  some  manifestation  of  what  professed  to  be  Hodg- 
son's spirit  taking  place.  Hodgson  had  often  during  his  lifetime 
laughingly  said  that  if  he  ever  passed  over  and  Mrs.  Piper  was 
still  officiating  here  below,  he  would  control  her  better  than  she 
had  ever  yet  been  controlled  in  her  trances,  because  he  was  so 
thoroughly  familiar  with  the  difficulties  and  conditions  on  this 
side.  Indeed  he  was ;  so  that  this  would  seem  primd  facie  a  par- 
ticularly happy  conjunction  of  spirit  with  medium  by  which  to 

test  the  question  of  spirit  return 

"  The  earliest  messages  from  '  Hodgson  '  have  been  communi- 
cated by  '  Rector,'  but  he  soon  spoke  in  his  own  name,  and 
the  only  question  which  I  shall  consider  in  this  paper  is  this :  Are 
there  any  unmistakable  indications  in  the  messages  in  question 
that  something  that  we  may  call  the  'spirit'  of  Hodgson  was 
probably  really  there?..." 

James  farther  says  (Pr.  XXIII,  4)  : 

"  Sources  other  than  R.  H.'s  surviving  spirit  for  the  veridical 
communications  from  the  Hodgson  control  may  be  enumerated 
as  follows: 

"  (1)  Lucky  chance-hits. 

"  (2)  Common  gossip. 

"  (3)  Indications  unwarily  furnished  by  the  sitters. 

"  (4)  Information  received  from  R.  H.,  during  his  lifetime, 
by  the  waking  Mrs.  P.  and  stored  up,  either  supraliminally  or 
subliminally,  in  her  memory. 


690      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV, 

"  (5)  Information  received  from  the  living  R.  H.,  or  others, 
at  sittings,  and  kept  in  Mrs.  Piper's  trance-memory,  but  out  of 
reach  of  her  waking  consciousness. 

"  (6)  '  Telepathy,'  i.e.,  the  tapping  of  the  sitter's  mind,  or  that 
of  some  distant  living  person,  in  an  inexplicable  way. 

"  (7)  Access  to  some  cosmic  reservoir,  where  the  memory  of 
all  mundane  facts  is  stored  and  grouped  around  personal  centers 
of  association." 

Conviction  of  Hodgson's  survival  depends  less  upon  what 
Hodgson  is  alleged  to  say  than  upon  conviction  that  Hodgson 
says  it — that  the  qualities  that  go  to  make  up  the  personality, 
speaking  or  writing — the  ideas,  interests,  tastes,  emotions, 
manners  of  expression  under  various  circumstances,  are 
Hodgson's.  But  James  would  probably  not  have  regarded 
these  as  the  "  unmistakable  indications  "  that  he  wanted.  He 
did  not  get  them,  and  I  do  not  believe  that  it  is  part  of  the 
system  of  things  that,  even  if  there  is  postcarnate  survival, 
we,  at  least  in  our  present  stage  of  development,  are  going 
to  have  "  unmistakable  indications  "  of  it.  Hodgson  living,  or 
any  other  man,  could  report  incidents  in  the  past  incorrectly, 
could  have  odd  bits  of  ignorance  and  odd  bits  of  knowledge; 
Hodgson  going  through  the  presumably  vast  change  of  death 
would,  it  seems,  almost  inevitably  have  his  recollections  much 
interfered  with;  but  there  or  here,  what  characterizes  a  man 
most  and  longest  is  not  his  accurate  memories.  Accidents  or 
disease,  even  often  including  that  result  of  either  denominated 
secondary  personality,  may  blot  out  not  only  the  "  verifiable 
memories,"  but  all  the  memories  except  those  required  for 
the  mechanical  functions  of  existence;  and  yet  whatever  the 
blotting  out,  the  remnant  of  the  individual  left  is  generally 
recognizable  as  the  one  he  was  before.  This  recognition  is 
often  enormously  helped  by  the  visible  man.  To  attain  it 
without  such  help  would  strengthen  the  evidence  of  identity, 
and  to  attain  it  in  spite  of  the  communications  coming 
through  a  visible  body  different  even  in  sex  from  that  previ- 
ously occupied  by  the  person  recognized,  would,  other  things 
even,  be  evidence  stronger  still.  But  what  has  come  under 
these  circumstances,  James  did  not  accept  as  "  unmistakable." 
Moreover  in  all  these  cases  the  visible  body  may  be  assumed 
to  be  acting  the  alleged  personality,  so  whatever  alternate 
possibilities  may  be  framed,  in  the  case  of  medium  and  alleged 


Ch.  XLIII]    Intimacy  with  Medium  Weakens  Case         691 

communicator,  we  are  driven  back  to  the  fundamental  ques- 
tion :  Is  the  medium  acting  the  communicator,  or  is  the  com- 
municator actually  existent  and  expressing  himself  through 
the  medium?  This  question  every  reader  is  going  to  decide 
for  himself.  We  may  not  all  of  us  be  able  to  act  as  judges 
or  counsel,  but  we  are  all  of  us  supposed  to  be  capable  of 
sitting  on  the  jury. 

In  making  selections  from  James's  presentation  of  this 
case,  I  am,  for  the  reasons  stated,  not  going  to  pay  special 
attention  to  the  evidential  or  non-evidential  character  of  any 
communication.  The  matter  over  which,  under  that  title,  the 
sitters,  supervisors  of  sittings,  and  editors  of  records  have 
labored  most,  seems  to  me  at  length  demonstrated  by  their 
labors  to  weigh  the  least,  or  rather  to  have  its  weight  about 
evenly  distributed  in  both  scales.  I  shall  later,  however,  pre- 
sent additional  considerations  tending  to  show  that  it  does 
not  legitimately  control  the  issue  at  all. 

Outside,  however,  of  the  verifiable  matter  to  which  the 
term  "  evidential "  has  been  unjustifiably  restricted,  there  are 
other  considerations  worthy  of  attention.  James  says  (Pr. 
XXIII,  5)  : 

"Mrs.  Piper  had  known  H.  well  for  many  years,  and  one 
sees  that  her  subliminal  powers  of  personation  would  have  had 
an  unusually  large  amount  of  material  to  draw  upon  in  case 
they  wished  to  get  up  a  make-believe  spirit  of  Hodgson.  So  far, 
then,  from  his  particular  case  being  an  unusually  good  one  by 
which  to  test  the  claim  that  Mrs.  Piper  is  possessed  during  her 
trances  by  the  spirits  of  our  departed  friends,  it  would  seem  to 
be  a  particularly  poor  one  for  that  purpose.  I  have  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  it  is  an  exceptionally  poor  one." 

But  is  not  the  force  of  all  this  negatived  by  the  fact  that 
Mrs.  Piper  has  done  just  as  well  with  many  other  alleged 
communicators,  often  persons  from  whom  she  had  no  ma- 
terial at  all,  as  with  Hodgson?  The  cases  already  quoted 
will  be  realized  abundantly  to  demonstrate  that  fact.  And 
James  farther  says  (p.  5) : 

"  Hodgson's  familiarity  when  in  the  flesh  with  the  difficulties 
at  this  end  of  the  line  has  not  made  him  show  any  more  expert- 
ness  as  a  spirit  than  other  communicators  have  shown ;  and  for 
his  successes  there  are  far  more  naturalistic  explanations  avail- 


692      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

able  than  is  the  case  with  the  other  spirits  who  have  professed  to 
control  Mrs.  Piper." 

No:  in  the  respects  which  to  many  will  seem  most  impor- 
tant, Hodgson  was  no  better  communicator  than  the  Thaw  and 
Sutton  babies.  That,  as  well  as  the  considerations  in  my 
preceding  paragraph,  certainly  tends  to  show  that  Mrs. 
Piper's  work  did  not  depend  on  previous  knowledge,  and  if  it 
did,  the  reader  will  judge  whether  it  was  possible  for  her  to 
use  it  as  she  did. 

James  goes  on  to  say  (p.  6) : 

"Abstractly,  it  seems  very  plausible  to  suppose  that  R.  H. 
(who  systematically  imposed  on  himself  the  law  of  never  men- 
tioning the  content  of  any  trance  in  her  waking  presence)  might 
have  methodically  adopted  a  plan  of  entertaining  her  on  his 
visits  by  reciting  all  the  little  happenings  of  his  days,  and  that 
it  is  this  chronicle  of  small  beer,  stored  in  her  memory,  that  now 
comes  out  for  service  in  simulating  his  spirit-identity." 

Such  things  of  course  count,  but,  as  I  am  beginning  to 
insist,  in  view  of  the  failures  in  the  same  direction,  they 
don't  count  much,  and  in  view  of  the  other  considerations — 
not  so  much  of  what  is  said  as  of  how  it  is  said,  they  often 
Beem  not  to  count  at  all.  I  go  so  far  as  to  say  that,  to  judge 
as  far  as  one  can  from  printed  records,  if  the  control  had 
been  persistently  lying,  there  would  have  been  a  feeling  that, 
despite  his  truthfulness  on  earth,  it  was  Hodgson  who  was 
doing  the  lying. 

James  begins  the  record  (Pr.  XXIII,  6-7)  : 

"  There  was  something  dramatically  so  like  him  in  the  utter- 
ances of  those  earliest  days,  gradually  gathering  '  strength '  as 
they  did,  that  those  who  had  cognizance  of  them  were  much  im- 
pressed." 

This  dramatic  power,  or  else  manifestation  of  individuality, 
exists  in  spite  of  the  notorious  scantness  and  imperfection  of 
the  communications.  From  the  scant  material  on  hand,  there 
could  even  be  "  hypothetical  cases  "  constructed,  lawyer  fash- 
ion, which  would  be  entitled  to  as  much  weight  as  real  ones — 
and  perhaps  they  could  be  constructed  equally  well  for  and 
against. 

To   avoid   constant  circumlocution,   I  will   provisionally 


Ch.  XLIII]    Does  Forgetting  Names  Weaken  Case?        693 

write  as  if  Hodgson  were  really  speaking.  Indeed,  I  doubt 
if  I  could  persistently  do  otherwise :  for  the  utterances  are  so 
natural  that  all  the  editors  of  the  Pr.  S.  P.  K.  unconsciously 
fall  into  that  way  of  expression. 

Hodgson  had  difficulty  in  recalling  names  of  persons  when 
he  well  remembered  circumstances  concerning  them  (Pr. 
XXIII,  42),  and  this  while  the  sitter  remembered  them  per- 
fectly. Now  if  the  medium  was  simply  reading  the  sitter's 
mind,  why  did  she  not  read  those  names,  which  were  probably 
the  most  distinct  things  in  it?  On  the  other  hand,  however, 
if  it  was  really  Hodgson's  spirit  communicating,  does  not  his 
forgetfulness  of  names  correspond  with  the  oft-alleged  be- 
numbed condition  of  the  faculties  resulting  from  the  transi- 
tion to  the  spirit  state?  May  not  this  condition  correspond 
somewhat  to  that  produced  by  advancing  years,  when  proper 
names  are  the  first  things  to  disappear  from  the  mind,  even 
while  it  still  appears  to  be  gaining  accretions  of  other  things  ? 
January  8,  1906,  he  answers  the  remark,  "  You  are  just 
the  same  as  ever,"  with,  "  Not  quite  as  full  of  energy  as  I 
wish,  but  give  me  time";  and  January  23  he  says,  "I  am 
not  strong." 

They  generally  speak  of  the  difficulty  of  communication. 
Thus  on  January  8,  1906,  the  second  sitting,  between  two 
and  three  weeks  after  his  death,  he  says  (p.  9)  : 

"  Exceedingly  difficult  to  come  very.  I  understand  why  Myers 
came  seldom.  I  must  leave.  I  cannot  stay." 

Compare  George  Pelham's  remark  to  me  regarding  com- 
municating through  a  medium :  "  I  find  it  difficult  to  get 
anything  through  this  protoplasm." 

James  says  (Pr.  XXIII,  7)  the  first  alleged  appearance 
of  Hodgson 

"  was  at  Miss  Theodate  Pope's  sitting  on  Dec.  28th,  1905  [the 

eighth  day  after  Hodgson's  death.  H.H.] Rector  had  been 

writing,  when  the  hand  dropped  the  pencil  and  worked  convul- 
sively several  seconds  in  a  very  excited  manner. 

"Miss  P.:  'What  is  the  matter?'  [The  hand,  shaking  with 
apparently  great  excitement,  wrote  the  letter  H, . . .  bearing  down 
BO  hard  on  the  paper  that  the  point  of  the  pencil  was  broken.  It 
then  wrote  '  Hodgson.'] 


694      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

Was  all  this  a  "  put-up  job  "  ?  And  if  so,  who  put  it  up, 
and  why? 

"  Miss  P. :  '  God  bless  you ! '  [The  hand  writes  '  I  am  '—fol- 
lowed by  rapid  scrawls,  as  if  regulator  of  machine  were  out  of 
order.]  Miss  P. :  'Is  this  my  friend  ? '  [Hand  assents  by  knock- 
ing five  times  on  paper-pad.]  (Rector)  :  '  Peace,  friends,  he  is 
here,  it  was  he,  but  he  could  not  remain,  he  was  so  choked.  He 

is  doing  all  in  his  power  to  return Better  wait  for  a  few 

moments  until  he  breathes  freer  again.' " 

Do  spirits  require  a  supply  of  oxygen,  or  is  the  expression 
metaphorical  for  something  not  accurately  communicable  to 
our  intelligence?  It  occurs  several  times.  Frequently  the 
"  spirits  "  say  they  are  tired,  especially  in  the  transition  from 
the  body.  The  expression  " choked"  may  be  purely  meta- 
phorical, yet  it  hardly  reinforces  my  faith  in  spiritism.  Lom- 
broso  says  (After  Death — What?,  197) : 

"In  a  seance  with  Delanne  in  Algiers,  Richet  was  favored 
with  several  apparitions  of  an  Arab  phantasm  called  Benny  Boa, 
who  disappeared  by  sinking  through  the  solid  earth,  then  reap- 
peared, pressed  the  hands  of  the  spectators,  and  in  response  to  a 
test  with  a  solution  of  baryta  showed  that  he  breathed  out  car- 
bonic acid  gas,  a  thing  that  would  assuredly  have  been  impossible 
in  the  case  of  a  mere  semblance  of  a  living  being  (as  certain 
critics  would  suspect),  nor  could  it  have  been  arranged  before- 
hand by  a  trickster." 

This  story  is  not  stimulative  of  faith  either.  But  to  pro- 
ceed with  the  sittings  (p.  7f.) : 

"  Miss  P. :  '  I  will.'  (R.)  :  '  Presently  he  will  be  able  to  con- 
duct all  here.'  Miss  P. :  '  That  is  good  news.'  (R.)  :  '  Listen. 

Everything  is  for  the  best.  He  holds  in  his  hand  a  ring He 

is  showing  it  to  you.  Cannot  you  see  it,  friend  ? '  Miss  P. :  'I 
cannot  see  it.  Have  him  tell  me  about  it.'  (R.)  :  '  Do  you  un- 
derstand what  it  means  ? '  Miss  P. :  '  I  know  he  had  a  very 
attractive  ring.'  (R.)  :  '  Margaret.' 

"'All'  was  then  written,  with  a  'B'  after  it,  and  Miss  P. 
asked  '  what  is  that? '  '  A,'  '  B '  and  '  L '  followed,  but  no  ex- 
planation. [The  explanation  will  be  given  later.] 

"  At  Miss  Pope's  next  sitting  (five  days  later),  after  some  talk 
about  him  from  Rector,  R.  H.  appeared  for  the  second  time,  and 
in  the  character,  familiar  to  him,  of  being  a  well-spring  of  poet- 
ical lore.  Mrs.  Piper's  hand  cramped  most  awkwardly,  first 
dropped  and  then  broke  the  pencil.  A  new  one  being  given,  the 
hand  wrote  as  follows : 


Ch.  XLIII]    Second  and  Third  Appearances  695 

" '  RICHARD  HODGSON  I  AM  WELL  HAPPY  GLAD  1  CAME  GOD  BLESS 
POPE' 

"  Miss  Pope :  '  Many  thanks.'    [Then  the  hand  wrote : — ] 

" '  It  lies  not  in  her  form  or  face 

Tho  these  are  passing  fair, 
Nor  in  the  woman's  tone  of  grace, 

Nor  in  her  falling  hair; 
It  lies  not  in  those  wondrous  eyes 

That  swiftly  light  and  shine, 
Tho  all  the  stars  of  all  the  skies 

Than  these  are  less  divine. 

I  am  only  practising.'  Miss  P. :  '  Who  wrote  it  ? '  (Hector)  : 
'  Eichard  only.'  Miss  P. :  '  When  ? '  '  Now.'  Miss  P. :  '  Doesn't 
it  exist  on  paper  in  our  world  ? '  '  No.'  Miss  P. :  '  Did  you 
really  make  that  up  ? '  '  Yes.'  Miss  P. :  '  Well,  you  are  clever.' 
(E.  H.)  :  '  If  you  ever  find  this  in  your  world,  never  believe  in 
this  world ! '  Miss  P. :  '  I  shall  look  for  it,  you  may  be  sure.' 
(E.  H.)  :  '  Good!  Think  I'm  asleep?  Not  much!  My  head.  I 
must  leave  you  now.'  (Eector)  :  '  It  is  impossible  for  us  to  hold 
him — that  is  all.'  Miss  P. :  '  Eector,  did  he  dictate  that  poem 
to  you  ? . . .  Do  you  think  he  made  it  up  ? '  (Eector)  :  '  I  do  posi- 
tively know  he  did. . . .  Farewell ! ' 

"  At  the  second  sitting  after  this  (Jan.  8th,  1906),  Miss  Pope 
again  being  the  sitter,  E.  H.  appeared  again,  writing  as  follows : 
'  I  am  Hodgson  ...  I  heard  your  call — I  know  you — you  are  Miss 
Pope.  Piper  instrument.  I  am  happy  exceedingly  difficult  to 
come  very.  I  understand  why  Myers  came  seldom.  I  must  leave. 
I  cannot  stay.  I  cannot  remain  to-day. ...  (A  tobacco-pouch 
that  had  belonged  to  Hodgson  was  presently  given  to  the  Me- 
dium as  an  '  influence,'  when  the  writing  went  on : — )  I  am  in 
the  witness-box,  do  you  remember? — Do  you  remember  my  pro- 
mise to  shake  you  up? '  Miss  P. :  '  I  once  asked  Geo.  P[elham] 
to  "  shake  me  up." '  (E.  H.)  :  '  No,  I  do  not  mean  that.'  Miss 
P. :  '  What  do  you  mean? '  (E.  H.)  :  '  I  said  that  if  I  got  over 
here  first  I  would  soon  learn  how  to  communicate. — I  would  not 
make  a  botch  of  it.'  Miss  P. :  '  I  remember — indeed  you  did.' 
(E.  H.)  :  '  I  am  certainly  E.  H.  I  am  sure.  I  have  joined  dear 
old  G.  Pelham,  who  did  so  much  for  me — more  than  all  the  rest 
put  together.  [After  a  few  words  im  Eector's  name,  a  brush  that 
had  belonged  to  Hodgson  was  put  into  the  medium's  hand.]  . . . 
Did  you  receive  my  lines  to  Miss  D.  ? '  [Eeferring  apparently 
to  the  verses  at  the  previous  sitting.]  Miss  P. :  '  Good,  that  is 

most  interesting.'    (E.  H.)  : '  Amen !    Miss  D '    [This  name, 

correctly  given,  is  that  of  the  cousin  of  E.  H.,  mentioned  as 
'  Q '  in  previous  reports,  a  name  well  known  to  the  trance-con- 
sciousness.—W.J.]  Miss  P.:  'Miss  D ?'  (E.  H.) :  'Yes. 

Ah,  ah,  ah,'  (which  written  words  indicate  laughter).    Miss  P.: 


696      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

'  What  does  that  mean  ?  '—(referring  to  the  '  ah,  ah ').  (R.  H.)  : 
'I  am  amused  at  you.  Yet?  found  them?'  [i.e.,  the  verses,  in 
any  previous  copy.  H.H.]  Miss  P. :  '  No,  I  haven't.'  (R.  H.)  : 
'  It  will  take  the  remainder  of  your  earthly  life,  and  then  you'll 
fail.'  Miss  P. :  *  You  are  just  the  same  as  ever.'  (R.  H.)  :  '  Not 
quite  as  full  of  energy  as  I  wish,  but  give  me  time.' 

"  On  Jan.  16th  and  Jan.  17th,  R.  H.  spoke  again  to  Miss  Pope, 
but  without  anything  evidential  in  matter — or  in  manner  either, 
unless  the  following  be  counted  as  dramatically  like : — '  I  shall 
never  assume  control  here.  Imperator  shall  lead  me.  In  his  care 
I  am  safe.  I  was  met  by  him.  There  will  be  no  moaning  at  the 
bar  when  I  pass  out  to  sea — remember  it? ...  [After  some  more 
non -evidential  talk,  R.  H.  mentions  his  living  friend,  Miss  Ban- 
croft, and  says : — ]  Give  my  love  to  her  and  tell  her  I  hope  to 
epeak  with  her  soon. 

" '  It  seems  as  if  the  wondrous  land 

Within  her  vision  lay: 
I  dimly  sense  the  mystic  strand 

Behind  the  glorious  gray. 

To  Margaret  Bancroft.  Give  her  this.  She  has  light '  [i.e.,  me- 
diumistic  capacity.  H.HJ.  [Correct. — W.J.]  Miss  P.:  'Yes. 

Is  this  your  own  ? '    (R.  H.)  : '  I  just  made  it  for  her Tell  her 

I  shall  never  forget  those  hills,  the  water,  our  talks,  and  the  de- 
lightful visit  I  had  with  her.  [Correct. — W.J.]  . . .  Ask  her  if 
she  knows  anything  about  my  watch  being  stopped.  Do  you  ?  I 
must  go  out  and  get  a  little  breath.'  [Again,  do  spirits  need 
oxygen  ?  H.H.]  [Miss  B.  writes : — '  I  think  the  watch  means  my 
watch.  We  had  a  number  of  jokes  about  the  frequent  stopping 
of  my  watch.'] 

"  On  Jan.  23rd,  1906,  Mrs.  Wm.  James,  and  W.  James,  Jr., 
had  a  sitting  at  which  R.  H.  used  the  medium's  voice  and  gave 
a  very  life-like  impression  of  his  presence.  The  record  runs  as 
follows :  '  Why,  there's  Billy !  Is  that  Mrs.  James  and  Billy  ? 
God  bless  you !  Well,  well,  well,  this  is  good !  [Laughs.]  I  am 
in  the  witness-box.  [Laughs.]  I  have  found  my  way,  I  am  here, 
have  patience  with  me.  All  is  well  with  me.  Don't  miss  me. 
Where's  William?  Give  him  my  love  and  tell  him  I  shall  cer- 
tainly live  to  prove  all  I  know '" 

Is  this  an  inadvertence  somewhere,  or  has  the  alleged  spirit- 
plane  its  "  death,"  as  our  plane  has  ? 

Note  that  this  "proving"  was  a  very  dominant  interest 
throughout,  as  it  seems  to  be  with  the  controls  generally. 
Where  did  Mrs.  Piper  get  it  all? 

" '  Something  on  my  mind.  I  want  Lodge  to  know  every- 
thing. I  have  seen  Myers.  I  must  rest.  [After  an  interval  he 


Ch.  XUII]  The  Eing  Incident  697 

comes  in  again : — ]  . . .  Remember,  every  communication  must 
have  the  human  element.  I  understand  better  now  why  I  had  so 
little  from  Myers.  [To  W.  J.,  Jr.]  What  discourages  you  about 
your  art  ?  [ W.  J.,  Jr.,  was  studying  painting.]  Oh,  what  good 
times  we  had,  fishing !  Believe,  Billy,  wherever  you  go,  whatever 
you  do,  there  is  a  God.' " 

The  Ring  Incident.    (Pr.XXin,13f.) 

"  On  Jan.  16th,  Miss  Pope  being  again  the  sitter,  the  R.  H. 
control  suddenly  wrote :  '  Give  ring  to  Margaret  back  to  Mar- 
garet.' [Mrs.  Lyman's  name  [pseudonym.  H.H.]  is  not  Marga- 
ret.] Miss  P. : '  Who  is  Margaret  ? '  R.  H. :  '  I  was  with  her  in 
summer.'  Miss  P. :  '  All  right,  but  the  ring  has  not  been  found 
yet.  Can  you  find  out  where  it  is  ? '  R.  H. :  '  The  undertaker 
got  it ' 

"  On  January  24th,  Mrs.  Lyman  herself  had  her  first  sitting. 
As  soon  as  Hodgson  appeared  he  wrote :  *  The  ring.  You  gave 
it  me  on  my  fiftieth  birthday.  When  they  asked  I  didn't  want 
to  say  you  gave  it  me,  I  didn't  want  to  say  that Two  palm- 
leaves  joining  each  other — Greek.  [Here  followed  an  illegible 
word.  The  palms  truly  described  the  ring,  which  Mrs.  Piper 

probably  had  seen ;  but  it  bore  no  Greek  inscription ]     You 

gave  it  me — '  Mrs.  L. :  '  Yes,  Dick,  where  is  it  now  ? '  R.  H. : 
'  They  have  got  it.  They  took  it  off  my  finger  after  I  was  gone.' 
Mrs.  L. : '  No,  they  didn't  find  it  on  your  finger.'  R.  H. :  '  Pocket, 
it  was  in  my  pocket.  I'll  find  it,  you  shall  have  it.' 

"  On  January  29th,  Mrs.  L.  had  another  sitting.  The  Hodg- 
son control  wrote : '  I  have  been  trying  to  make  clear  about  that 
ring.  It  is  on  my  mind  all  the  time.  I  thought  if  I  could  get 
Margaret  B.  to  get  it  for  me,  I  would  get  it  to  you  through  her, 
then  no  one  would  understand.  I  could  not  tell  Miss  Pope  about 
you.'  Mrs.  L. :  '  Did  you  think  Margaret  B.  gave  it  to  you  ? ' 
R.  H. :  '  Oh  dear  no !  not  at  all.'  Mrs.  L. :  '  Then  why  did  you 
speak  of  her  ? '  R.  H. :  *  I  could  trust  her  absolutely,  and  no  one 
could  understand.  She  would  never  betray  it.  You  gave  it  to 
me  on  my  50th  birthday.  Palms  and  R.  H.  [Then  a  possible 
attempt  to  draw  a  symbol  engraved  on  the  ring.]  No  one  living 
knows  this  but  myself  and  yourself.'  [Note  the  term  "  living  " 
as  applied  to  himself.  H.H.]  Mrs.  L. :  '  That  is  true,  but  what 
was  the  motto  in  the  ring  ? '  R.  H. :  '  All  will  be  clear  to  me  in 
time.  Do  not  ask  me  test  questions  now '" 

His  failure  to  remember  it  is  one  of  the  most  knock-down 
anti-evidential  arguments,  but  it  is  equally  anti-telepathic. 
His  never  speaking  of  the  ring  to  other  friends,  the  Jameses, 
and  Mr.  Dorr,  seems  very  "  evidential." 


698      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

"On  March  5th  K.  H.  again  inquires  of  Mrs.  Lyman  about 
the  ring.  She  then  asks  him :  '  Did  you  have  it  on  that  last  day 
when  you  went  to  the  boat-club  ? '  [R.  H.  died  while  playing  a 
game  of  hand-ball  at  the  boat-club.]  R.  H. :  '  I  certainly  had  it 
on  that  day.'  Mrs.  L. :  '  You  told  Miss  P.  the  undertaker  got  it.' 
R.  H. :  '  Thought  he  did  and  I  am  sure  a  man  took  it  from  my 
finger.  [After  a  few  more  words  R.  H.  continues :]  I  had  that 
ring  on  my  finger  when  I  started  for  the  club,  I  recall  putting  it 
in  my  pocket.  I  did  so  because  it  hurt  my  finger  when  playing 
ball.  I  am  not  dreaming,  I  am  clear.  When  I  get  here  first  I 
am  a  little  stuffy,  but  I  am  as  clear  now  as  I  ever  was,  I  put  it 
in  my  waistcoat  pocket.' " 

These  absolutely  individual  sentences  with  all  their  spon- 
taneities, inter-plays,  and  fitnesses,  and  thousands  of  others 
like  them  all  come  from  "alternate  selves"  of  Mrs.  Piper, 
do  they? 

"  Mrs.  L. :  '  Why  do  you  think  a  man  stole  it  ? '  R.  H. :  '  I  saw 
it  on  a  finger. ...  I  put  it  in  my  pocket,  and  the  one  who  took 

care  of  my  clothes  is  responsible  for  it What  did  they  do 

with  my  waistcoat  ? ' 

"  On  May  16th,  on  being  told  that  the  ring  is  not  yet  found, 
the  R.  H.  control  writes:  'I  saw  it  taken  by  a  man  from  my 
locker.  He  was  in  charge  at  the  time  and  he  has  my  ring. ...  I 
shall  be  able  to  discover  his  name  so  you  may  be  able  to  find  it. 
I  see  where  he  goes  and  the  house  where  he  lives,  plainly ...  [a 
description  of  the  house  and  man.  H.H.].  I  see  the  ring  on  his 
finger  clearly.  The  waistcoat  was  in  his  room  when  I  entered 
the  light  a  few  moments  ago.  I  am  as  sure  of  this  as  I  am  that 
you  are  Mrs.  Lyman.' 

"  In  point  of  fact  the  ring  was  found  a  couple  of  months  later 
in  the  pocket  of  Hodgson's  waistceat,  which  had  been  too  care- 
lessly explored  for  it,  and  which  had  lain  during  all  the  interval 
in  a  room  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Dorr,  with  whom  the  Hodgson 
control  had  all  the  time  been  having  frequent  communications. 

u  The  whole  incident  lends  itself  easily  to  a  naturalistic  in- 
terpretation. Mrs.  Piper  or  her  trance-consciousness  may  pos- 
sibly have  suspected  the  source  of  the  ring.  Mrs.  Lyman's  man- 
ner may  have  confirmed  the  suspicion.  The  manner  in  which 
the  first  misleading  reference  to  '  Margaret '  was  afterwards  ex- 
plained away  may  well  have  been  the  cunning  of  a  '  control ' 
trying  plausibly  to  cover  his  tracks  and  justify  his  professed 
identity." 

But,  please,  what  is  a  "control"?  And  why  does  one 
want  to  be  taken  for  somebody  else?  Is  this  explanation 
"  naturalistic  "  ?  It  seems  to  my  poor  wits  to  grant  the  whole 


Ch.  XLIII]    James  and  Mrs.  Lyman  on  Eing  Incident    699 

case,  and  reminds  me  of  the  deniers  of  telepathy  availing 
themselves  of  it  to  explain  away  spiritism.  Or  does  he  mean 
a  control  faked  by  Mrs.  Piper?  If  James  had  not  already 
grown  past  that,  he  gave  indications  that  he  had  later. 

"  The  description  of  the  house  and  of  the  man  to  whom  he 
ascribes  its  present  possession  sounds  like  vague  groping,  char- 
acteristic also  of  control-cunning."  i 

But  why  should  there  be  "control-cunning"?    Is  it  any- 
thing like  commentator-cunning? 
James  proceeds,  without  any  "cunning"  (p.  16)  : 

"  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  hypothesis  be  seriously  entertained 
that  Hodgson's  spirit  was  there  in  a  confused  state,  using  the 
permanent  Piper  automatic  machinery  to  communicate  through, 
the  whole  record  is  not  only  plausible  but  natural.  It  presents 
just  that  mixture  of  truth  and  groping  which  we  ought  to  expect. 
Hodgson  has  the  ring  '  on  his  mind '  just  as  Mrs.  Lyman  has. 
Like  her,  he  wishes  its  source  not  to  be  bruited  abroad.  He  de- 
scribes it  accurately  enough,  truly  tells  of  his  taking  it  to  the 
fatal  boat-club,  and  of  putting  into  his  waistcoat-pocket  there, 
of  the  waistcoat  being  taken  from  the  locker,  and  vaguely,  but 
not  quite  erroneously,  indicates  its  present  position." 

And  why  should  it  not  be  even  "  quite  erroneously "  ? 
Nearly  all  the  reasoning  I  have  seen  on  these  matters  is 
vitiated  by  the  entirely  gratuitous  traditional  assumption  that 
if  a  soul  survives  death,  it  enters  at  once  into  measureless 
wisdom.  Hodgson  (?)  and  the  rest  seem  pretty  much  the 
same  sort  of  people  that  they  were  here,  and  I  for  one  am 
glad  of  it.  James  continues : 

"  Mrs.  Lyman's  [pseudonym,  remember.  H.H.]  own  impres- 
sion of  the  incident  is  as  follows :  '. . .  Had  he  had  entire  control 
he  would  never  have  mentioned  the  ring  until  I  had  come  to  a 
sitting,  but  in  his  half-dreamy  state  something  slipped  out  to 
Miss  Pope,  the  sitter,  aided  telepathically  perhaps  by  her  know- 
ledge that  he  had  lately  worn  an  unusual-looking  ring  which  she 
knew  was  missing  after  his  death.  I  am  sure  that  Miss  Pope 
thought  the  ring  would  be  a  good  "  test,"  so  that  although  she 
was  not  the  first  to  speak  of  it,  it  must  certainly  have  been  in 
her  mind.  It  is  characteristic  of  R.  H.  that  even  in  his  half- 
conscious  state  he  is  able  to  keep  his  own  counsel  so  well.  The 
word  Margaret  and  the  letters  B  and  L  which  followed  the  men- 
tion of  the  ring  at  the  very  first  sitting  seem  to  refer  to  Miss 
Margaret  Bancroft  and  myself.  He  knew  that  Miss  Bancroft 
had  '  light,'  and  he  seems  to  feel  that  if  he  can  only  reach  her 


700      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

she  will  understand  what  he  wants.  He  was  well  aware  of  my 
own  morbid  dislike  of  having  my  affairs  mentioned  at  the  trance 
outside  of  my  own  sittings.  You  know  that  curious  trait  of  sus- 
picion in  Hodgson's  absolutely  honest  nature — trained  in  him 
professionally.  When  Miss  Pope  tells  him  the  ring  cannot  be 
found,  he  at  once  thinks :  "  there  was  my  body,  and  my  clothes, 
etc.,  I  believe  the  undertaker  took  it."  Then  I  myself,  Mrs. 
Lyman,  come  and  again  tell  him  the  ring  can't  be  found.  Hia 
earthly  memories  presently  become  clear  and  he  tells  me  exactly 
what  he  did  with  it  before  his  death.  But  his  suspicious  side 
has  been  aroused — you  know  how  anything  once  registered  on 
the  trance-machinery  ["  Trance  machinery "  is  good,  but  is  it 
entirely  consistent  without  the  rest  of  the  explanation?  H.H.] 
seems  to  make  an  impression  and  tends  to  recur — and  again  he 
thinks  that  someone  took  it.  Nothing  could  be  more  character- 
istic of  H.  than  his  indignant  remark  about  the  man  who  had 
charge  of  his  clothes  being  responsible.  It  all  seems  to  me  the 
kind  of  unpractical  thing  that  a  man  would  do  in  a  dream. 
There  are  strong  characteristics  of  R.  H.  in  it,  but  it  is  R.  H. 
dreaming  and  troubled.  I  am  glad  I  haven't  to  make  myself 
intelligible  to  a  stranger  to  the  persons  involved;  but  knowing 
them  as  I  do,  I  feel  my  own  way  straight  through  the  maze,  and 
the  explanation  is  clear.' " 

James  resumes  (Pr.  XXIII,  17)  : 

"  This  incident  of  the  ring  seems  to  me  a  typical  example  of 
the  ambiguity  of  possible  interpretation  that  so  constantly 
haunts  us  in  the  Piper  phenomenon.  If  you  are  willing  before- 
hand to  allow  that  a  half -awakened  spirit  may  come  and  mix  its 
imperfect  memories  with  the  habits  of  the  trance-automatism, 
and  you  apperceive  the  message  sympathetically,  what  you  get 
is  entirely  congenial  with  your  hypothesis.  But  if  you  insist 
that  nothing  but  knock-down  evidence  for  the  spirits  shall  be 
counted,  then,  since  what  comes  is  also  compatible  with  natural 
causes,  your  hardness  of  heart  remains  unbroken,  and  you  con- 
tinue to  explain  things  by  automatic  personation  and  accidental 
coincidence,  with  perhaps  a  dash  of  thought-transference  thrown 
in.  People  will  interpret  this  ring-episode  harmoniously  with 
their  prepossessions.  Taken  by  itself  its  evidential  value  is 
weak;  but  experience  shows,  I  think,  that  a  large  number  of 
incidents,  hardly  stronger  than  this  one,  will  almost  always  pro- 
duce a  cumulative  effect  on  the  mind  of  a  sitter  whose  affairs 
they  implicate,  and  dispose  him  to  the  spiritistic  view.  It  grows 
first  possible,  then  plausible,  then  natural,  and  finally  probable 
in  a  high  degree." 

Regarding  this  ring  incident,  Podmore  got  so  far  as  to  say 
(New.  Spir.,  p.  217)  : 


Ch.  XLIII]  Nigger-Talk  Case  701 

"  The  interpretation  of  this  incident,  as  Professor  James  has 
pointed  out,  is  ambiguous.  It  is  consistent  either  with  the 
theory  of  fishing  and  general  cunning  on  the  part  of  the  trance 
intelligence  playing  a  new  part,  or  with  the  theory  of  a  living 
Hodgson,  still  half -mazed  by  the  great  change  and  without  full 
control  of  his  reason  or  his  memories." 

James  continues: 

"  The  next  incident  I  will  cite  is  one  which  at  a  certain 
moment  gave  me  a  little  thrill,  as  if  I  might  be  really  talking 
with  my  old  friend.  (I  have  to  make  the  personal  confession 
that  this  reality-coefficient,  as  Professor  Baldwin  calls  it,  has 
generally  been  absent  from  my  mind  when  dealing  with  the 
Piper-controls  or  reading  reports  of  their  communications.)  I 
will  call  the  episode  '  the  nigger-talk  case.' " 

The  Nigger-Talk  Case.    (Pr.XXIII,18f.) 

"  On  February  27th,  1906,  at  a  sitting  with  Professor  Hyslop,  > 
the  following  dialogue  took  place: 

"  K.  H. :  '  I  wonder  if  you  recall  what  I  said  I  would  do  if  I 
should  return  first  ? '  Hyslop :  '  I  do  not  remember  exactly.' 
R.  H. :  '  Remember  that  I  told  Myers  that  we  would  talk  nigger- 
talk — Myers — talk  nigger-talk  ? '  Hyslop :  '  No,  you  must  have 
told  that  to  someone  else.'  R.  H. :  '  Ah  yes,  James.  I  remember 
it  was  James,  yes,  Will  James.  He  will  understand.' 

"  Mr.  Hyslop  immediately  wrote  to  me — I  being  in  California 
— inclosing  the  record  and  soliciting  corroboration.  I  had  to 
reply  that  the  words  awakened  absolutely  no  echo  in  my  mem- 
ory. Three  months  later ...  it  suddenly  flashed  across  me  that 
...  I  had . . .  said  to  Hodgson,  more  than  once,  that  a  little  tact- 
ful steering  on  his  part  would  probably  change  the  sacerdotal 
verbiage  of  the  Imperator  group  so  completely  that  he  would 
soon  find  them  '  talking  like  nigger-minstrels.'. . .  I  regret  to  say, 
however,  that  the  subsequent  developments  of  the  incident  have 

deprived  it  in  my  eyes  of  all  test  value Mr.  Piddington  has 

found  in  the  Piper  records  evidence  that  Hodgson  had  used  the 
words  '  nigger-talk  '  in  speaking  to  the  Myers  control,  so  that  this 
expression  must  be  considered  as  part  of  the  stock  of  Mrs. 
Piper's  trance-vocabulary." 

"  Test  value "  apparently  has  a  highly  technical  meaning 
with  the  psychical  researchers — so  high,  some  plain  people 
might  think,  as  to  deprive  the  term  itself  of  all  value.  If  a 
control  uses  an  exceptional  term  once,  it  is  legitimate  to  ex- 
perience a  "  thrill  " — to  feel  in  the  presence  of  the  "  old 
friend  "  represented  by  the  control.  But  if  the  control  hap- 
pens to  have  used  the  same  term  during  life  in  Mrs.  Piper's 


702      'Piper-Hodgson  'Control  in  'America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

presence,  it  ceases  to  be  his  term,  but  becomes  "a  part  of 
the  stock  of  Mrs.  Piper's  trance  vocabulary"!  This  too  in 
face  of  the  fact  that,  according  to  my  best  recollection,  never 
again,  so  far  as  the  records  show,  is  the  vocabulary  tapped 
for  that  particular  term.  The  technical  objection  may  be 
sound — presumably  it  is,  from  such  a  master  as  James,  but 
I  confess  that,  as  evidence,  it  seems  one  of  those  trifles  of 
which  non  curat  lex. 

As  to  Mrs.  Piper's  "  trance  vocabulary,"  I  wonder  if  James 
died  believing  she  had  one.  I  don't  expect  to.  Barring  cer- 
tain transient  mannerisms  such  as  we  all  have,  I  have  not  seen 
in  the  reports  the  slightest  sign  of  a  trance  vocabulary.  Her 
vocabularies  are  substantially  the  vocabularies  of  the  controls, 
even  sometimes  to  the  extent  of  foreign  languages,  of  which 
she  knows  none  herself. 

In  Pr.  XXIII,  19-20,  James  says: 

"  One  of  the  weirdest  feelings  I  have  had,  in  dealing  with  the 
business  lately,  has  been  to  find  the  wish  so  frequently  surging 
up  in  me  that  he  were  alive  beside  me  to  give  critical  counsel  as 
to  how  best  to  treat  certain  of  the  communications  of  his  own 
professed  spirit." 

Who  that  has  lost  a  close  friend  has  not  felt  this  in  some 
connection  ? 

There  may  be  those  not  absolutely  devoid  of  reasoning 
capacity  with  whom  the  evocation  of  these  cross-plays  of 
emotion  weighs  more  than  all  the  "  evidential "  matter  either 
way. 

^  The  Huldah  Episode.    (Pr.XXm,20f .) 

"  During  the  voice-sitting  of  May  2nd,  1905  [obvious  misprint 
for  1906:  Hodgson  was  alive  until  near  the  close  of  1905.  H.H.], 
Mr.  Piddington  being  present,  the  R.  H.  control  said :  '  Pid,  I 
want  very  much  to  give  you  my  private  letters  concerning  a 
Miss — a  Miss — in  Chicago  [pseudonym].  I  do  not  wish  anyone 
to  read  them ' 

"  The  name  '  Densmore '  [pseudonym]  was  then  written. . . . 
The  name  '  Huldah '  was  then  given  as  that  by  which  the  letters 
would  be  signed.  On  May  14th  Piddington  reported  to  the  R.  H. 
control  that  no  such  letters  could  be  found,  and  asked . . . '  Can 
you  tell  me  at  what  time  this  lady  wrote  letters  to  you  ?  Was  it 
lately?'  R.  H.:  'No,  several  years  previously.  I  should  be 


Ch.  XLIII]  Huldah  Densmore  703 

much  distressed  if  they  fell  into  other  hands.     No  one  living 
except  the  lady  and  myself  knows  of  the  correspondence.' " 

Note  this  second  allusion  to  himself  as  living,  and  as  in  the 
same  sense  as  his  surviving  friend. 

"  J.  G.  P. :  '  If  I  cannot  find  those  letters,  should  you  feel  any 
objection  to  my  writing  to  the  lady  to  ask  if  there  has  been  such 
a  correspondence  ? '  R.  H. : '  Yes,  I  would  rather  you  would  do  so.' 

"  Later  (May  29th)  Piddington  reports  unsuccessful  search 
again,  and  Mr.  Dorr,  who  also  is  present,  asks  whether  '  Huldah ' 
is  one  of  a  family  of  Densmores  known  to  him.  '  Is  she  a  sister 
of  Mary,  Jenny,  and  Ella  [pseudonyms]  ? '  R.  H. :  '  Ella  is  the 
one.  Huldah  we  used  to  call  her.  [This  was  emphatically 
spoken.  Then  followed  a  statement  (not  caught  in  Mr.  Dorr's 
notes)  that  the  lady's  full  name  was  Ella  Huldah  Densmore.]  . . . 
I  hope  I  have  destroyed  them — I  may  have  done  so  and  forgotten 
it.  There  was  a  time  when  I  greatly  cared  for  her,  and  I  did  not 
wish  it  known  in  the  ears  of  others.  I  think  she  can  corroborate 
this.  I  am  getting  hazy  ["known  in  the  ears"  is  a  very  evi- 
dential indication  of  it.  H.H.].  I  must  leave.' 

"  On  June  5th  . . .  D.  asked :  '  Can  you  tell  us  anything  more 
about  Huldah  Densmore  ?  You  said  the  other  day  that  she  was 
the  same  person  as  Ella?  Were  you  clear  in  saying  that?' 
R.  H. :  '  Did  I  say  that  ?  That  was  a  mistake.  She  is  a  sister. 
Is  one  of  the  three  sisters,  but  not  Ella.  [She  was  Ella.]  I 
know  what  I  am  talking  about.  I  saw  Huldah  in  Chicago.  I 
was  very  fond  of  her.  I  proposed  marriage  to  her,  but  she  re- 
fused me.' " 

In  time  the  lady  wrote  Professor  James: 

" '  Years  ago  Mr.  H.  asked  me  to  marry  him,  and  some  letters 
were  exchanged  between  us  which  he  may  have  kept.  I  do  not 
remember  how  I  signed  the  letters  to  him.  I  have  sometimes 
used  my  middle  name,  Hannah,  instead  of  Ella.'  [She  knew  of 
no  '  Huldah '  in  her  family.] " 

"  Hodgson  did  consult  the  Imperator  group  at  the  time  of  his 
disappointment,  and  the  reasonable  conclusion  is  that  the  revela- 
tion which  so  surprised  Mr.  Dorr  and  myself  was  thus  a  product 
of  Mrs.  Piper's  trance-memory  of  previous  conversations  with 
the  living  Hodgson." 

In  face  of  all  the  evidence  in  existence  at  this  late  day, 
that  may  still  be  a  "  reasonable  conclusion,"  but  I  wonder  if 
James  himself  would  now  call  it  "  the  reasonable  conclusion." 
Why  should,  and  how  could,  Mrs.  Piper  fake  out  her  memories 
into  this  lifelike  dramatic  form  ?  That's  a  consideration  whose 


704      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

weight  has  heen  unfelt  by  many  whose  interest  was  concen- 
trated in  "  tests."    Yet  it  is  perhaps  the  strongest  test  of  all. 

And  by  the  way,  as  I  learn  directly  from  several  sitters,  this 
Imperator  group  have  stuck  their  noses  into  the  love  affairs  of 
many  of  the  habitual  sitters  who  had  love  affairs  during  their 
time.  As  actual  personalities  or  as  Mrs.  Piper  echoing  the 
sitter's  desires,  they  have  advised  proposals  and  acceptances, 
happily  sustained  many  failing  hopes,  and  made  many  bad 
messes  and  disappointments,  including  Hodgson's;  and  yet 
despite  that,  he  kept  up  his  faith  in  them  to  the  last.  Though 
on  January  27,  1906,  the  Hodgson  control  suddenly  says  to 
Professor  Newbold  (Pr.  XXIII,  23-4)  : 

"'Let  me  ask  if  you  remember  anything  about  a  lady  in 
[Chicago]  to  whom  I  referred.'  W.  K.  N. :  '  Oh  Dick,  I  begin 
to  remember.  About  eight  or  nine  years  ago,  was  it,  Dick  ? ' 
R.  H. :  '  Yes.'  [Note  by  W.  R.  N.— Such  a  lady  was  frequently 
mentioned  at  sittings,  in  1895,  and  H.  was  told  he  would  marry 
her.  I  was  present  when  these  statements  were  made,  if  my 
memory  serves  me.]  . . .  W.  R.  N. :  '  Was  it  Jessie  Densmore  ? ' 
R.  H. :  '  Yes,  Good.'  [Mr.  Dorr,  who  was  present,  here  inter- 
jects:] 'Do  you  mean  the  name  was  Jessie  Densmore,  Hodg- 
son?' R.  H. :  'No,  no,  no,  no.'  [Jessie  was  the  first  name  of 
R.  H.'s  Australian  cousin,  '  Q.'— W.  J.]  . . .  W.  R.  N. :  « Dick,  it 
comes  back  to  me  as  a  cloud.'  R.  H. :  '  She  was  a  Miss  Dens- 
more ;  I  loved  her  dearly '  W.  R.  N. :  '  I'm  not  sure  you  told 

me  her  name.'    R.  H. :  '  Yes,  I  did.'    W.  R.  N. :  '  The  name  is  the 

least  likely  thing  for  me  to  remember What  is  the  married 

name  of  Miss  Densmore  ? '     R.  H. :  '  Heaven  knows !     It  has 
gone  from  me  and  I  shall  soon  go  myself.' " 

Again  the  impossibility  of  summoning  up  names  when 
other  things  are  clear.  No  man  of  my  age  needs  to  have  it 
explained. 

Does  his  remark,  "  I  shall  soon  go  myself,"  refer  to  the 
frequent  statement  that  spirits  move  on  to  higher  planes,  or 
that  he  was  getting  tired,  or  what?  Whatever  it  is,  it  is  a 
touch  of  nature — due  of  course  to  some  double  back-action 
mechanism  hypothetized  by  the  psychologists  in  Mrs.  Piper! 

James  continues: 

"  Dr.  Newbold . . .  has  sent  me  a  letter  written  to  him  by 
Hodgson  in  1895,  from  which  it  would  appear  that  the  Piper 
controls  had  prophesied  that  both  he  and  Newbold  would  ere 
long  be  made  matrimonially  happy,  but  that  whereas  the  prophecy 


Ch.  XLIII]    Strong  against  Telepathy  from  Sitter         705 

was  being  verified  in  N.'s  case,  it  had  been  falsified  in  his  own, 
he  having  that  day  received  formal  announcement  of  the  mar- 
riage of  Miss  Densmore  to  another October  24th,  1906 1 

ask :  W.  J. :  '  Did  you  make  anyone  your  confidant  ? '  R.  H. : 
'  No,  though  I  may  possibly  have  given  a  hint  of  it  to  New- 
bold '  W.  J. :  '  She  denies  any  knowledge  of  the  name  Hul- 

dah.'  R.  H. :  'I  used  that  name  instead  of  the  right  Christian 
name  [he  here  gives  the  latter  correctly]  to  avoid  compromising 
— it  was  a  very  delicate  matter,  and  caused  me  great  disappoint- 
ment. Have  you  communicated  it  to  her  ?  R.  H.'  W.  J. :  '  Yes, 
and  she  corroborates. . . .'  [R.  H.  displays  no  further  curiosity, — 
a  living  person  would  probably  have  asked  whether  the  lady  had 
said  nothing  about  him,  etc.]  R.  H. :  '  Do  you  remember  a  lady- 
doctor  in  New  York  ?  a  member  of  our  Society  2 '  W.  J. :  '  No, 
but  what  about  her  ? '  R.  H. :  '  Her  husband's  name  was  Blair 
...  I  think.'  W.  J. :  '  Do  you  mean  Mrs.  Dr.  Blair  Thaw? ' ' 

Another  of  those  queer  lapses  of  memory  absolutely  incon- 
sistent with  telepathy  from  the  sitter,  and  absolutely  con- 
sistent with  the  fazed  condition  of  a  "control."  Hodgson 
knew  the  Thaws  much  better  than  James  did.  So,  for  that 
matter,  did  Mrs.  Piper  herself:  she  needn't  have  faked  all 
this  uncertainty. 

"R.  H.:  'Oh  yes.  Ask  Mrs.  Thaw  if  I  did  not  at  a  dinner 
party  mention  something  about  the  lady.  I  may  have  done  so.' 

"  [Mrs.  Thaw  writes  in  comment  upon  this : — '  Fifteen  years 
ago,  when  R.  H.  was  visiting  us  after  his  operation  for  appendi- 
citis he  told  me  that  he  had  just  proposed  to  a  young  lady  and 
been  refused.  He  gave  no  name,' — Mrs.  Thaw  is  the  only  living 
person  beside  Newbold  to  whom  I  can  certainly  find  that  he  ever 
spoke  of  this  episode,  and  the  clue  to  Mrs.  Thaw  comes  from  the 
control!— W.J.]  [Italics  mine.  H.H.]  " 

Why  does  he  not  say  from  Mrs.  Piper — her  trance  memory 
or  trance  vocabulary  or  alternate  personality  or  subliminal 
something  or  other?  Simply  because  he  cannot,  I  venture  to 
think — because  the  most  natural  and  least  strained  thing  to 
do  is  exactly  what  he  has  done.  That  does  not  prove  it  the 
correct  thing,  though. 

"  W.  J. :  '  Do  you  remember  the  name  of  Huldah's  present  hus- 
band ? '  [To  which  R.  H.  replied  by  giving  his  country  and  title 
correctly,  but  fails  to  give  his  name.]  " 

That  fits  too  with  what  I  have  said  three  times  in  as  many 
pages. 
James,  who  had  been  as  intimate  as  anybody  with  Hodgson 


706      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

and  his  circle,  could  not  find  a  person,  except  a  sister  of  the 
lady,  who  had  ever  suspected  Hodgson's  state  of  mind,  but, 
James  adds  (Pr.  XXIII,  25) : 

"If  spirit- return  were  already  made  probable  by  other  evi- 
dence, this  might  well  be  taken  as  a  case  of  it  too.  But  what  I 
am  sifting  these  records  for  is  independent  evidence  of  such  re- 
turn; and  so  long  as  the  record  in  this  instance  lends  itself  so 
plausibly  to  a  naturalistic  explanation,  I  think  we  must  refuse 
to  interpret  it  in  the  spiritistic  way." 

But  there's  getting  to  be  a  portentous  accumulation  of 
these  things  to  be  interpreted  in  the  less  obvious  way.  Though 
there  are,  of  course,  big  arguments  against  the  obvious  way. 

The  Pecuniary  Messages.    (Pr.  XXIII,  26f.) 

The  American  branch  of  the  S.  P.  E.  never  paid  its  ex- 
penses, and  twice,  in  time  of  trouble,  Hodgson's  salary  was 
eked  out  by  friends.  One  of  these,  at  a  sitting,  the  sur- 
viving (?)  Hodgson  reminded  of  a  funny  story  the  occasion 
had  suggested;  and  the  other,  whose  identity  Hodgson  had 
never  known,  he  warmly  thanked  at  the  first  sitting  with 
him  after  Hodgson's  death.  Professor  James  says  (Pr. 
XXIII,  27)  : 

"  I  cannot  well  understand  how  Mrs.  Piper  should  have  got 
wind  of  any  part  of  the  financial  situation,  although  her  con- 
trols may  have  got  wind  of  it  in  trance  from  those  who  were  in 
the  secret." 

It  looks  to  me  almost  as  if  I  must  have  overlooked  some- 
thing. What  does  James  mean  by  "her  controls"?  Is  not 
one  control  as  good  as  another,  and  the  Hodgson  control  good 
enough?  This  is  apparently  the  second  time  in  this  report 
where,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  James  uses  "  control "  to  disprove 
a  control,  a  sort  of  thing,  however,  which  nobody  with  his 
reserve  of  opinion  could  avoid  without  much  borous  circum- 
locution, and  which  illustrates  the  almost  unescapable  veri- 
similitude of  these  communications. 

James,  in  summing  up  the  first  part  of  his  report,  says 
(Pr.  XXIII,  28-9) : 

"  (1)  The  case  is  an  exceptionally  bad  one  for  testing  spirit- 
return,  owing  to  the  unusual  scope  it  gives  to  naturalistic  ex- 
planations. 


Ch.  XLIII]  Comments  ly  James  707 

"  (2)  The  phenomena  it  presents  furnish  no  knock-down  proof 
of  the  return  of  Hodgson's  spirit. 

"  (3)  They  are  well  compatible,  however,  with  such  return, 
provided  we  assume  that  the  Piper-organism  not  only  transmits 
with  great  difficulty  the  influences  it  receives  from  beyond  the 
curtain,  but  mixes  its  own  automatic  tendencies  most  disturb- 
ingly therewith.  [And  what  more  natural  than  that  "  the  Piper- 
organism"  should  do  just  those  things?  And  its  own  limita- 
tions? Cf.  my  remarks  in  Chapter  XXXVI  on  the  Piper- 
George-Eliot  and  Piper-Scott,  and  on  p.  637  on  the  Myers  con- 
trol through  various  mediums.  H.H.]  Hodgson  himself  used 
to  compare  the  conditions  of  spirit-communication  to  those 
of  two  distant  persons  on  this  earth  who  should  carry  on  their 
social  intercourse  by  employing  each  of  them  a  dead-drunk 
messenger. 

"  (4)  Although  this  Hodgson  case,  taken  by  itself,  yields  thus 
only  a  negative,  or  at  the  best  a  baffling  conclusion,  we  have  no 
scientific  right  to  take  it  by  itself,  as  I  have  done.  It  belongs 
with  the  whole  residual  mass  of  Piper  phenomena,  and  they  be- 
long with  the  whole  mass  of  cognate  phenomena  elsewhere  found. 
False  personation  is  a  ubiquitous  feature  in  this  total  mass.  It 
certainly  exists  in  the  Piper  case;  and  the  great  question  there 
is  as  to  its  limits. ...  I  admire  greatly  Hodgson's  own  discussion 
of  the  Piper  case  [which  I  abstracted  in  Chapter  XXXIV. 
H.H.],  especially  in  sections  5  and  6,  where,  taking  the  whole 
mass  of  communication  into  careful  account,  he  decides  for  this 
spiritist  interpretation.  I  know  of  no  more  masterly  handling 
anywhere  of  so  unwieldy  a  mass  of  material;  and  in  the  light 
of  his  general  conclusions  there,  I  am  quite  ready  to  admit  that 
my  own  denials  in  this  present  paper  may  be  the  result  of  the 
narrowness  of  my  material,  and  that  possibly  R.  H.'s  spirit  has 
been  speaking  all  the  time,  only  my  ears  have  been  deaf.  It  is 
true  that  I  still  believe  the  '  Imperator  band '  to  be  fictitious 
entities,  while  Hodgson  ended  by  accepting  them  as  real ;  but  as 
to  the  general  probability  of  there  being  real  communicators 
somewhere  in  the  mass  I  cannot  be  deaf  to  Hodgson's  able  dis- 
cussion, or  fail  to  feel  the  authority  which  his  enormous  expe- 
rience gave  to  his  opinion  in  this  particular  field. 

"  (5)  I  therefore  repeat  that  if  ever  our  growing  familiarity 
with  these  phenomena  should  tend  more  and  more  to  corroborate 
the  hypothesis  that  '  spirits '  play  some  part  in  their  production, 
I  shall  be  quite  ready  to  undeafen  my  ears,  and  to  revoke  the 
negative  conclusions  of  this  limited  report.  The  facts  are  evi- 
dently complicated  in  the  extreme,  and  we  have  as  yet  hardly 
scratched  the  surface  of  them.  But  methodical  exploration  has 
at  last  seriously  begun,  and  these  earlier  observations  of  ours 
will  surely  be  interpreted  one  day  in  the  light  of  future  discov- 
eries which  it  may  well  take  a  century  to  make.  I  consequently 
disbelieve  in  being  too  '  rigorous '  with  our  criticism  of  anything 


708      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

now  in  hand,  or  in  our  squeezing  so  evidently  vague  a  material 
too  hard  in  our  technical  forceps,  at  the  present  stage." 

Troubles  of  the  American  Branch  of  the  S.  P.  R. 

In  the  second  part  of  the  report,  James  describes  some 
features  of  the  chaos  in  which  Hodgson's  sudden  death  left 
the  affairs  and  records  of  the  Am.  S.  P.  E.,  and  the  serious 
difficulties — partly  of  personal  temperament — encountered  in 
the  labors  of  certain  survivors  who  worked  uncompensated 
purely  in  the  interests  of  science.  He  says  (Pr.  XXIII, 
31f.)  : 

"The  records  of  the  Piper  trance  show  that  during  all  this 
period  the  '  controls '  had  cognizance  of  the  main  factors  of  per- 
plexity. There  were,  however,  so  many  sources  of  leakage  at  this 
epoch  that  no  part  of  this  cognizance  can  be  counted  as  evidence 
of  supernormal  knowledge. . . .  The  result,  however,  was  that 
those  who  held  sittings  at  this  time  had  a  lively  feeling  that  the 
control-personality  they  talked  with,  whether  Rector  or  Hodgson, 
was  an  intelligence  which  understood  the  whole  situation.  It 
talked  appropriately  with  Dorr  about  certain  records  not  being 
made  public;  with  Henry  James,  Jr.,  about  the  disposition  of 
R.  H.'s  books  and  other  property;  with  Piddington  and  Dorr 
about  Hyslop's  desires  and  how  best  to  meet  them ;  with  Hyslop 
about  his  responsibilities  and  about  mediums  in  whom  he  and 
Hodgson  had  recently  been  interested;  with  Dorr,  James,  Pid- 
dington, and  Mrs.  Lyman  about  whom  to  induce  to  manage  the 
sittings;  with  more  than  one  of  us  about  a  certain  person  who 
was  unduly  interfering,  etc.,  etc.;  the  total  outcome  being  that 
each  sitter  felt  that  his  or  her  problems  were  discriminatingly 
perceived  by  the  mind  that  animated  the  sleeping  medium's 
organism. 

"  More  than  this — most  of  us  felt  during  the  sittings  that  we 
were  in  some  way,  more  or  less  remote,  conversing  with  a  real 
Rector  or  a  real  Hodgson.  And  this  leads  me  to  make  a  general 
remark  about  the  difference  between  reading  the  record  of  a 
Piper  sitting  and  playing  an  active  part  in  the  conversation 
recorded. 

"  One  who  takes  part  in  a  good  sitting  has  usually  a  far  live- 
lier sense,  both  of  the  reality  and  of  the  importance  of  the  com- 
munication, than  one  who  merely  reads  the  record." 

It  has  hardly  been  so  with  my  little  experience  as  sitter, 
and  considerable  as  reader.  A  sitter  is  more  distracted  by 
the  non-essential  res  gestce  than  a  reader,  especially  as  those 
non-essentials  are  generally  eliminated  by  the  editors. 


Ch.  XUII]    James  on  the  Logic  of  Presumption  709 

"  Active  relations  with  a  thing  are  required  to  bring  the  reality 
of  it  home  to  us,  and  in  a  trance-talk  the  sitter  actively  co-oper- 
ates  When  I  first  undertook  to  collate  this  series  of  sittings 

and  make  the  present  report,  I  supposed  that  my  verdict  would  be 
determined  by  pure  logic.  Certain  minute  incidents,  I  thought, 
ought  to  make  for  spirit-return  or  against  it  in  a  '  crucial '  way. 
But  watching  my  mind  work  as  it  goes  over  the  data,  convinces 
me  that  exact  logic  plays  only  a  preparatory  part  in  shaping  our 
conclusions  here  [or  anywhere  else  in  direct  human  interests. 
H.H.]  ;  and  that  the  decisive  vote,  if  there  be  one,  has  to  be  cast 
by  what  I  may  call  one's  general  sense  of  dramatic  probability, 
which  sense  ebbs  and  flows  from  one  hypothesis  to  another — it 
does  so  in  the  present  writer  at  least — in  a  rather  illogical  man- 
ner. If  one  sticks  to  the  detail,  one  may  draw  an  anti-spiritist 
conclusion;  if  one  thinks  more  of  what  the  whole  mass  may 
signify,  one  may  well  incline  to  spiritist  interpretations 

"  The  common-sense  rule  of  presumption  in  scientific  logic  is 
never  to  assume  an  unknown  agent  where  there  is  a  known  one." 

Yes,  provided  the  known  one  is  up  to  the  job.  But,  for 
one,  the  more  I  read  of  these  manifestations,  the  less-  the 
whole  string  of  "fraud,  subconscious  personality,  lucky  acci- 
dent, and  telepathy/'  as  James  puts  it  (see  below),  seems  ade- 
quate, except  under  the  association  of  the  subconscious  self 
and  telepathy  with  the  cosmic  soul.  Under  the  ordinary 
meaning  of  the  terms,  the  attempt  to  use  these  explanations 
is  beginning  to  strike  me  as  ludicrous,  and  his  dwelling  on 
them  so  much  more  than  on  the  "  dramatic  probability,"  the 
inevitable  effect  of  early  preconceptions.  But  if  the  stock  ex- 
planations are  all  inadequate,  that  does  not  prove  the  truth  of 
spiritism. 

But  James  goes  on  (I  hope  he  and  you  will  pardon  my 
interruptions)  : 

"  Our  rule  of  presumption  should  lead  us  then  to  deny  spirits 
and  to  explain  the  Piper  phenomena  by  a  mixture  of  fraud  [He 
has  contradicted  the  fraud  possibility  time  and  again?  H.H.], 
subconscious  personation,  lucky  accident,  and  telepathy,  when- 
ever such  an  explanation  remains  possible.  Taking  these  Hodg- 
son records  in  detail,  and  subjecting  their  incidents  to  a  piece- 
meal criticism,  such  an  explanation  does  seem  practically  possi- 
ble everywhere;  so,  as  long  as  we  confine  ourselves  to  the  mere 
logic  of  presumption,  the  conclusion  against  the  spirits  holds 
good." 

Logic  has  explained  away  Shakespere  and  Napoleon.  It 
can  very  easily  be  overdone,  and  more  than  once  in  reading 


710      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV. 

the  Pr.  S.  P.  E.  I  have  thought  it  has  been.  James  seems  to 
agree :  for  he  goes  on  to  say : 

"  But  the  logic  of  presumption,  safe  in  the  majority  of  cases, 
is  bound  to  leave  us  in  the  lurch  whenever  a  real  exception  con- 
fronts us;  and  there  is  always  a  bare  possibility  that  any  case 
before  us  may  be  such  an  exception.  In  the  case  at  present  be- 
fore us  the  exceptional  possibility  is  that  of  '  spirits '  really  hav- 
ing a  finger  in  the  pie.  The  records  are  fully  compatible  with 
this  explanation,  however  explicable  they  may  be  without  it. ... 
I  myself  can  perfectly  well  imagine  spirit-agency,  and  I  find  my 
mind  vacillating  about  it  curiously.  When  I  take  the  phenom- 
ena piecemeal,  the  notion  that  Mrs.  Piper's  subliminal  self  should 
keep  her  sitters  apart  as  expertly  as  it  does,  remembering  its 
past  dealings  with  each  of  them  so  well,  not  mixing  their  com- 
munications more,  and  all  the  while  humbugging  them  so  pro- 
fusely, is  quite  compatible  with  what  we  know  of  the  dream-life 

of  hypnotized  subjects If  we  suppose  Mrs.  Piper's  dream-life 

once  for  all  to  have  had  the  notion  suggested  to  it  that  it  must 
personate  spirits  to  sitters,  the  fair  degree  of  virtuosity  it  shows 
need  not,  I  think,  surprise  us.  Nor  need  the  exceptional  memory 
shown  surprise  us,  for  memory  seems  extraordinarily  strong  in, 
the  subconscious  life." 

These  statements  stagger  me :  for,  so  far  as  I  know,  there 
never  has  been  shown  in  any  clear  case  of  hypnotism  a  degree 
of  those  capacities  at  all  comparable  with  Mrs.  Piper's. 

If  Mrs.  Piper's  is  a  "  fair  degree  of  virtuosity,"  I  would 
like  to  be  put  on  the  track  of  a  high  degree :  for,  in  a  pretty 
wide  reading,  I  have  found  no  degree  of  it,  or  no  allusion 
to  a  degree  of  it,  to  be  compared  with  hers;  and  the  nearest 
to  such  a  degree  has  been  that  of  other  mediums.  Yet  my 
reading  is  nothing  beside  James's.  But  I  cannot  help  be- 
lieving that  this  passage  is  heavily  seasoned  with  his  im- 
pulsive generosity  to  a  side  which  he  was  gradually  coming 
to  oppose,  and  to  which  he  still  felt  an  habitual  allegiance. 
He  continues  (Pr.  XXIII,  35-7)  : 

"When  I  connect  the  Piper  case  with  all  the  other  cases  I 
know . . .  and  with  the  whole  record  of  spirit-possession  in  human 
history,  the  notion  that  such  an  immense  current  of  experience, 
complex  in  so  many  ways,  should  spell  out  absolutely  nothing  but 
the  words  '  intentional  humbug '  appears  very  unlikely.  The  no- 
tion that  so  many  men  and  women,  in  all  other  respects  honest 
enough,  should  have  this  preposterous  monkeying  self  annexed 
to  their  personality  seems  to  me  so  weird  that  the  spirit-theory 
immediately  takes  on  a  more  probable  appearance. . . .  The  more 


Ch.  XLIII]      Considerations  Outside  Logic  711 

I  realize  the  quantitative  massiveness  of  the  phenomenon  and 
its  complexity,  the  more  incredible  it  seems  to  me  that  in  a  world 
all  of  whose  vaster  features  we  are  in  the  habit  of  considering 
to  be  sincere  at  least,  however  brutal,  this  feature  should  be 
wholly  constituted  of  insincerity. ...  I  am  able,  while  still  hold- 
ing to  all  the  lower  principles  of  interpretation,  to  imagine  the 
process  as  more  complex,  and  to  share  the  feeling  with  which 
Hodgson  came  at  last  to  regard  it  after  his  many  years  of 
familiarity,  the  feeling  which  Prof.  Hyslop  shares,  and  which 
most  of  those  who  have  good  sittings  are  promptly  inspired 
with.  I  can  imagine  the  spirit  of  R.  H.  talking  to  me  through 
inconceivable  barriers  of  obstruction,  and  forcing  recalcitrant  or 
only  partly  consilient  processes  in  the  Medium  to  express  his 

thoughts,  however  dimly 

"  Hodgson  was  distinguished  during  life  by  great  animal 
spirits.  He  was  fond  of  argument,  chaff,  and  repartee,  a  good 
deal  of  a  gesticulator,  and  a  great  laugher. . . .  Chaff  and  slang 
from  a  spirit  have  an  undignified  sound  for  the  reader,  but  to  the 
interlocutors  of  the  R.  H.  control  they  seem  invariably  to  have 
been  elements  of  verisimilitude.  Thus  T.  P.  writes,  a  propos  of 
a  bantering  passage  in  the  record  of  Jan.  16,  1906 :  '  T.  P.  and 
R.  H.  were  such  good  chums  that  he  was  saucy  to  her,  and  teas- 
ing her  most  of  the  time.  R.  H.'s  tone  towards  T.  P.  in  all  his 
communications  is  absolutely  characteristic,  and  as  he  was  in 
life.'  Similarly,  Dr.  Bayley  appends  this  note  to  a  number  of 
ultra-vivacious  remarks  from  R.  H. :  '  Such  expressions  and 
phrases  were  quaintly  characteristic  of  R.  H.  in  the  body,  and  as 
they  appear,  often  rapidly  and  spontaneously,  they  give  the  al- 
most irresistible  impression  that  it  is  really  the  Hodgson  per- 
sonality, presiding  with  its  own  characteristics.' " 

God  save  me  from  a  heaven  where  there  is  no  "chaff  and 
slang"!  I  should  fail  to  recognize  some  of  my  best  friends 
among  the  loftiest  souls  who  have  escaped  the  flesh,  Hodgson 
not  the  least.  However  intense  the  interest  heretofore  taken 
in  a  future  world,  I  doubt  if  it  has  ever  been  thoroughly 
healthy,  or  ever  will  be  before  we  get  our  conceptions  of  that 
world  off  stilts. 

James  continues  (Pr.  XXIII,  37-8)  : 

"  This,  however,  did  not  exclude  very  serious  talk  with  the 
same  persons — quite  the  reverse  sometimes,  as  when  one  sitter 
of  this  class  notes :  '  Then  came  words  of  kindness  which  were 
too  intimate  and  personal  to  be  recorded,  but  which  left  me  so 
deeply  moved  that  shortly  afterwards,  at  the  sitting's  close,  I 
fainted  dead  away — it  had  seemed  as  though  he  had  in  all  reality 
been  there  and  speaking  to  me.' 

"  Hodgson  quickly  acquired  a  uniform  mode  of  announcing 


712      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

himself:  'Well,  well,  well!  I  am  Hodgson.  Delighted  to  see 
you.  How  is  everything?  First  rate?  I'm  in  the  witness-box 
at  last/  etc.,  with  almost  no  variety.  This  habitual  use  of 
stock-remarks  by  Mrs.  Piper  may  tempt  one  to  be  unjust  to  the 
total  significance  of  her  mediumship." 

To  me  the  temptation  is  directly  opposite :  she  never  mixes 
up  the  "  stock  remarks  "  of  her  many  controls,  and  any  man 
(or  spirit?)  gets  into  a  regular  way  of  speech  in  regularly 
recurring  circumstances. 

"  [  J.]  . . .  The  control  G.  P.,  at  the  outset  of  his  appearance, 
gave  supernormal  information  copiously,  but  within  a  few  years 
he  has  degenerated  into  a  shadow  of  his  former  self,  dashing  in 
and  quickly  out  again,  with  an  almost  fixed  form  of  greeting. 
Whatever  he  may  have  been  at  first,  he  seems  to  me  at  last  to 
have  '  passed  on,'  after  leaving  that  amount  of  impression  on  the 
trance-organism's  habits." 

This  does  not  seem  inconsistent  with  the  genuineness  of 
the  controls.  Assuming  them  to  be  what  they  purported,  they 
had  no  new  experiences  to  speak  of  in  common  with  the  sit- 
ters ;  the  circumstances  of  their  "  meeting  "  day  by  day  were 
virtually  identical ;  even  "  the  weather  "  was  no  longer  a  topic 
of  common  interest  and  varying  detail.  As  the  stock  of 
common  topics  becomes  exhausted,  why  shouldn't  the  variety 
of  conversation  diminish?  In  going  over  this  with  a  person 
of  somewhat  similar  experience,  I  elicited  the  remark :  "  Why, 
we've  almost  got  down  to  a  little  litany." 

Moreover,  all  the  controls  speak  (whatever  their  observa- 
tions may  be  worth)  of  their  general  tendency  to  get  farther 
and  farther  away  from  earthly  interests,  and  the  medium's 
sensitiveness  was  decreasing  with  advancing  years. 


CHAPTEE  XLIV 
THE  PIPER-HODGSON  CONTROL  IN  AMERICA  (Continued) 

The  Oldfarm  Series.    (Pr.XXHI,38f.) 

JAMES  next  gets  back  to  the  records  in  the  sittings  relating 
to  Oldfarm,  Mr.  George  B.  Dorr's  place  at  Bar  Harbor,  Maine, 
where  Hodgson  had  often  been  a  summer  guest. 

I  was  there  many  times,  including  a  fortnight  in  1894 
with  James,  Hodgson,  and  Myers,  and  about  everybody  men- 
tioned as  being  there  in  the  Hodgson  sittings,  and  although  I 
shall  not  quote  much  of  the  record,  I  add  my  testimony  to 
its  wonderful  verisimilitude. 

But  there  is  little  that  is  "evidential"  about  it  in  the 
sense  that  most  of  the  psychical  researchers  go  in  for  evidence : 
it  was  nearly  all  in  Mr.  Dorr's  mind.  The  same  is  true  of 
about  all  the  "  evidential "  manifestations  of  the  Hodgson 
control  (except  Miss  Bancroft's  lights,  cf.  infra)  :  the  ma- 
terial was  nearly  all  in  some  incarnate  mind,  and  careful  and 
exact  and  unfoolable  scientists  want  us  to  believe  that  each  of 
those  minds,  as  Mrs.  Piper's  mind,  using  that  material,  could 
draw  Hodgson  as  well  as  Shakespere  could  have  drawn 
him. 

Perhaps  it  is  "unscientific"  to  make  extracts  from  it, 
but  why  did  those  scientists  go  to  the  trouble  of  printing 
it  all  ?  Their  reasons  must  justify  our  going  on  with  it. 

"  Mrs.  Piper  at  the  time  of  these  sittings  had  never  been  at 
Bar  Harbor;  and  although  she  had  had  many  interviews,  as  well 
with  Mr.  Dorr  as  with  Mr.  Dorr's  mother  before  the  latter'a 
death,  it  is  unlikely  that  many  of  the  small  veridical  details  in 
what  follows  had  been  communicated  to  her  at  those  interviews. 
At  Mr.  Dorr's  sitting  of  June  5th,  1906,  he  asks  the  R.  H.  control 
for  his  reminiscences  of  Oldfarm : '  Do  you  remember  your  visits 
to  us  there  ? ' 

"  R.  H. :  '  Certainly  I  do.  One  night  we  stayed  out  too  long 
and  your  mother  got  very  nervous,  do  you  remember?  Minna 

718 


714      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

was  there We  stayed  out  much  too  long.    I  felt  it  was  a 

great  breach  of  etiquette  but  we  couldn't  help  it !  I  fear  as  guests 
we  were  bad  [laughs].  [...One  of  the  first  things  he  would 
recall,  associated  as  those  evenings  were  with  people  whom  he 
cared  for. — D.]  And  do  you  remember  the  discussion  I  had  with 
Jack,  when  he  got  impatient  ?  You  were  much  amused ! . . .  And 
I  remember  your  mother's  calling  me  out  one  Sunday  morning 

to  see  the  servants  go  to  church  on  a  buckboard I  can  see  the 

open  fireplace  in  the  living  room. . . .'  G.  B.  D. :  '  Do  you  re- 
member where  you  used  to  sleep  ? '  K.  H. :  '  Out  in  the  little 
house  just  out  across  the  yard,  where  we  used  to  go  and  smoke.' 
[. . .  We  used  to  close  the  house  itself  early  in  the  evening,  and 
R.  H.  was  very  apt  then  to  go  up  to  the  cottage  with  some  other 
man  or  men  and  sit  up  and  smoke  and  talk, — often  until  quite 
late. — D.]  R.  H. :  '  I  remember  the  bathing  and  the  boats  and  a 

walk  through  the  woods '     G.  B.  D. :  '  Do  you  remember 

whether  you  used  to  bathe  off  the  beach,  or  off  the  rocks  ? ' 
R.  H. :  '  We  used  to  bathe  off  the  rocks;  I'm  sure  of  that.  I  can 
see  the  whole  place.'  [. . .  My  bath-house  was  not  on  the  beach, 
but  on  a  point  running  far  out  into  the  sea,  very  bold  and 
rocky. . . . — D.]  R.  H. :  'I  can  see  the  little  piazza  that  opened 
out  from  your  mother's  room  and  the  whole  beautiful  outlook 
from  it,  over  the  water.'  [. . .  The  piazza  . . .  only  familiar  to  my 
mother's  more  intimate  friends,  is  not  a  thing  which  would 
occur  naturally  to  anyone  not  familiar  with  our  life  down  there. 
-D.] 

"  Mr.  Dorr  then  asks  R.  H.  if  he  remembers  a  walk  he  once 
took  with  a  young  friend  from  New  York,  where  R.  H.  out- 
walked the  other  man  and  was  very  triumphant  about  it  after- 
ward, and  whether  he  could  recall  the  man's  name.  He  also  asks 
him  if  he  remembers  the  name  of  the  man  who  lived  in  the  farm 
house,  where  R.  H.  used  generally  to  sleep  when  staying  at  Old- 
farm.  Both  of  these  names  would  have  been  quite  familiar  to 
R.  H.  in  life.  R.  H.  cannot  give  them  and  makes  no  attempt 
to  do  so." 

Again  the  paradoxical  memory  that  I  trust  I  have  ade- 
quately explained!  If  Mrs.  Piper  was  merely  echoing  Mr. 
Dorr's  mind,  apparently  she  could  have  got  the  names  more 
definitely  than  anything  else. 

"  R.  H. :  '  Names  are  the  hardest  things  to  remember ;  it's  ex- 
traordinary but  it's  true.  The  scenes  of  my  whole  life  are  laid 
open  to  me  but  names  go  from  one's  memory  like  a  dream.' " 

I  have  experienced  it  daily  in  advancing  years.  Names  go 
first.  Why  not  in  the  transfer  to  the  new  life,  assuming  one 
to  be? 


Ch.  XLIV]  The  Owl's  Head  Series  715 

On  July  2,  1906,  Mr.  Dorr  asked  (Pr.  XXIII,  43) : 

"  '  Now,  Hodgson,  can't  you  tell  me  something  about  the  lady 
you  were  interested  in,  whose  letters  you  asked  Piddington  to 
find  ? . . .  Was  she  out  of  sympathy  with  your  work  ? '  K.  H. : 
'  She  wanted  me  to  give  it  up — it  was  a  subject  she  did  not  care 
to  have  to  do  with.'  [Correct  as  to  the  lady's  animus. — W.J.]  " 

Later  Hodgson  says : 

" '  I  remember  one  evening,  and  it  impressed  me  so  vividly 
because  your  mother  did  not  like  it,  and  I  felt  we  had  done 
wrong  and  hurt  her — M.  and  I  were  smoking  together  and  we 
talked  too  late,  and  she  felt  it  was  time  to  retire — . . .'  [She 
used  to  smoke  cigarettes  occasionally,  and  was  the  only  person 
of  the  feminine  sex  whom  I  now  recall  as  having  done  so  at  our 

house Hodgson  would  have  been  most  unlikely  to  speak  of 

it ...  — certainly  not  to  Mrs.  Piper,  either  in  trance  or  awake. — 
D.]  [But  D.  knew  it,  and  Mrs.  P.  could  hare  got  it  from  him 
telepathically.  H.H.]  " 

James  thus  concludes  (Pr.  XXIII,  47) : 

"  It  is  hardly  possible  that  all  the  veridical  points  should  have 
been  known  to  Mrs.  Piper  normally. . . .  For  the  mass,  it  seema 
to  me  that  either  reading  of  Mr.  Dorr's  mind,  or  spirit-return,  13 
the  least  improbable  explanation." 

But  why  didn't  she  get  names  ?  Foster  got  them  from  me 
very  readily.  This  would  seem  to  leave  James  arguing  for 
"  spirit-return." 

The  Owl's  Head  Series.    (Pr.XXni,47f.) 

"  Owl's  Head  was  the  name  of  the  summer  place  of  Miss  Ban- 
croft, overlooking  Kockland  Harbor,  in  Maine,  where  Mrs.  Piper 

had  never  been Miss  Bancroft  had  been  a  sitter  of  Mrs. 

Piper's  and  was  a  convert  to  spiritism,  with  some  degree  of 
'  psychic '  susceptibility  herself.  At  her  first  sitting  after  Hodg- 
son's death,  Feb.  19th,  1906,  Mr.  Dorr  also  being  present,  the 
following  dialogue  took  place : 

"  '  I  am  Hodgson !  Speak !  Well,  well,  well,  I  am  delighted  to 
see  you.  How  are  you  ? '  Miss  B. :  '  I  am  all  right.  How  are 
you  I '  R.  H. :  '  First  rate.'  Miss  B. :  '  I  can  scarcely  speak  to 
you.'  R.  H. :  '  But  you  must  speak  to  me.'  Miss  B. :  '  Will  you 
give  me  some  definite  message? '  R.  H. :  '  Surely  I  will.  I  have 
called  and  called  to  you.  Do  you  remember  what  I  said  to  you 
about  coming  here  if  I  got  a  chance  ? '  Miss  B. :  '  Yes,  I  do.' 
R.  H. :  'I  wish  you  to  pay  attention  to  me.  [The  sitter  and 
Mr.  Dorr  were  together  trying  to  decipher  the  script.]  Do  you 
remember  how  I  used  to  talk  about  this  subject,  evenings?  You 


71G      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV. 

know  what  you  said  about  my  writing — I  think,  I  am  getting  on 
first-rate.' 

"  [Everything  accurate  so  far  T  Miss  B.  can  herself  write 
automatically,  and  since  R.  H.'s  departure,  has  thought  that  he 
might  have  been  influencing  her  subconsciousness  in  that  and 
other  ways.  The  words  '  I  have  called/  etc.,  she  interprets  in 
this  sense.  Rector,  however,  already  knew  of  her  automatic 
writing. — W.J.] 

"  [J.]  On  the  night  of  Hodgson's  death,  Miss  B.,  whom  I  de- 
scribed above  as  having  'psychic'  aptitudes,  had  received  a 
strong  impression  of  his  presence." 

Let  me  again  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  persons  with 
"psychic  aptitudes"  always  get  most  through  the  mediums. 

"  Miss  B. :  '  Yesterday  you  said  you  had  "  called  and  called  " 
me.  When  did  you  ever  call  me  ? '  R.  H. :  '  Just  after  I  passed 
out  I  returned  to  you  and  saw  you  resting . . .  and  came  and 

called  to  you  telling  you  I  was  leaving '  Miss  B. :  '  Did  I  not 

answer?'  R.  H.:  'Yes,  after  a  while.'  Miss  B.:  '  What  did  I 
do  ? '  R.  H. :  *  You  arose  and  seemed  nervous.  I  felt  I  was  dis- 
turbing you.  I  then  left.'  Miss  B. :  f  Do  you  not  recall  another 
time  when  I  was  sure  you  were  there  and  I  did  something  ? . . . 
What  did  I  do  at  one  o'clock,  Christmas  morning?'  R.  H. :  'I 
saw  you,  I  heard  you  speak  to  me  once,  yes.  I  heard  you  speak 
to  someone,  and  it  looked  like  a  lady.  You  took  something  in 
your  hand,  and  I  saw  you  and  heard  you  talking.'  Miss  B. : '  Yes, 
that  is  true.'  R.  H. :  '  I  heard  you  say  something  about  someone 
being  ill,  lying  in  the  room.'  [Nellie  was  ill  in  my  room. — M.B.] 
Miss  B. : '  Yes  that  is  true.  I  also  said  something  else.'  R.  H. : 
'  You  said  it  was  myself.'  Miss  B. :  '  Yes,  I  said  that.  Anything 
else  ? '  R.  H. : '  I  remember  seeing  the  light,  and  heard  you  talk- 
ing to  a  lady.'  [Correct. — M.B.] 

"  [NOTE. — A  propos  to  Miss  Bancroft's  '  psychic '  susceptibil- 
ity, at  a  sitting  on  October  17th,  1906,  which  Mrs.  M.  had  with 
Mrs.  Piper,  the  following  words  were  exchanged : 

"  Mrs.  M. : '  Any  other  messages,  Dick  ? '  R.  H. :  '  Not  for  him 
[the  person  last  spoken  of],  but  tell  Margaret  it  was  I  who  pro- 
duced that  light  she  saw  the  other  night.' 

"  The  sitter  immediately  wrote  to  Miss  Margaret  Bancroft . . . 
to  ask  (not  telling  her  of  the  message)  whether  she  had  had  any 
special  experiences  of  late.  Miss  B.  answered :  '  I  had  a  very 
curious  experience  on  the  morning  of  the  14th.  At  four  o'clock 
I  was  awakened  from  a  sound  sleep,  and  could  feel  distinctly  the 
presence  of  three  people  in  the  room.  I  sat  up  and  was  so  atten- 
tive that  I  hardly  breathed.  About  nine  feet  from  the  floor  there 
appeared  at  intervals  curious  lights,  much  like  search-lights,  but 
softer,  and  there  seemed  to  be  a  distinct  outline  of  a  figure. . . . 


Ch.  XLIV]     Mysterious  Lights.    Dr.  Bayley  717 

This  lasted  probably  from  fifteen  to  twenty  minutes . . .  when  I 
went  into  a  sound  sleep.']  " 

It  may  be  justifiable  to  introduce  here  a  "light"  experi- 
ence of  my  own.  Late  one  night  a  few  years  since  I  was  lying 
awake  facing  the  fireplace  containing  only  dead  ashes,  when  I 
saw  a  distinct  light  like  a  live  coal  slowly  move  from  the  back 
toward  the  front.  Fearing  it  might  start  a  fire  on  the  floor  or 
rug,  I  got  up  to  examine,  and  found  nothing.  Then  I,  perhaps 
superstitiously,  felt  moved  to  look  about  the  house  for  fire.  I 
found  that  the  fire  under  the  boiler  in  the  cellar  had  gone 
out,  and  as  the  night  was  bitter  cold,  if  I  had  not  restored  it, 
not  only  would  we  have  had  a  freezing  house  in  the  morning, 
but  our  water-pipes,  both  supply  and  heating,  and  radiators, 
would  have  frozen,  with  great  consequent  damage  and  incon- 
venience for  many  days.  About  that  time  I  had  had  other 
strange  super-usual  informations,  and  I  could  not  then,  and 
cannot  now,  avoid  thinking  that  this  may  have  been  a  friendly 
warning  from  some  unknown  intelligent  source.  It  of  course 
reminded  me  of  Phinuit's  assertion  (which  I  have  not  tried  to 
verify)  that  I  am  a  medium. 

But  to  return  to  James's  report  (Pr.  XXIII,  52f.) : 

"  Dr.  Bayley,  to  whom  reference  was  made  in  connection  with 
Owl's  Head,  at  Miss  Bancroft's  first  sitting,  had  two  sittings  in 
April,  in  which  the  hearty  and  jocose  mannerisms  of  R.  H.  were 
vividly  reproduced 

"  R.  H. :  '  Have  you  seen  Billy? '  [My  friend  Prof.  Newbold. 
— B.]  Dr.  B. :  '  No,  have  you  any  word  for  him  ? '  R.  H. :  '  Ask 
him  if  he  remembers  the  day  we  went  to  the  seashore  and  we  sat 
on  the  beach,  and  I  told  him  how  I  hoped  to  come  over  here  any 
time,  only  I  wanted  to  finish  my  work.  And  ask  him  if  he  re- 
members what  I  told  him  about  my  getting  married.'  Dr.  B. :  *  I 
don't  know  anything  about  it.  That's  a  good  test.'  [Proves  to 
have  been  correct. — W.  J.] " 

"  On  June  20th,  1906,  Miss  Bancroft  had  her  third  sitting. 
Some  days  previous  to  this,  Mrs.  M.,  an  old  friend  of  Hodgson, 
had  taken  to  her  sitting  a  cross  which  remained  among  his 
effects,  and  asked  the  R.  H.  control  for  directions  concerning  its 
disposition.  The  control  had  ordered  it  to  be  sent  to  Miss  Ban- 
croft; and  when  he  appeared  to  Miss  Bancroft  at  the  sitting  a 
few  days  later  almost  his  first  word  was : 

" '  Get  my  cross  ? '  Miss  B. :  '  Yes,  thank  you  very  much ' 

R.  H. :  'A  Mascot  I  send  to  you.'  Miss  B. :  '  Yes,  I  know  you 
sent  it  to  me.'  R.  H. :  '  I  shall  be  with  you  when  you  are  in  the 


718      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

cottage.'  Miss  B. :  '  Do  you  know  that  I  have  bought  the  place  ? ' 
K.  H. :  '  Of  course  I  do.  I  understand  pretty  well  what  you  are 

about '    Miss  B. :  '  I  have  seen  you  several  times  in  dreams.' 

R.  H. :  '  Remember  my  knock  ? '  Miss  B. :  '  When  did  you 
knock?'  R.  H. :  'You  were  sleeping.'  Miss  B. :  'I  remember 
twice  when  I  thought  someone  knocked  my  arm.'  R.  H. :  '  But 
I  woke  you,  I  certainly  did.'  [Correct.]  Miss  B. :  '  Can't  you  do 
me  a  favor  by  knocking  now  ? . . .'  R.  H. : '  Not  while  I  keep  on 
speaking.  You  wish  me  to  knock  your  arm  now,  eh?  I  cannot 
do  so  and  keep  on  speaking ' " 

And  yet  Mrs.  Piper  could  at  the  same  time  write  for  one  con- 
trol, and  talk  for  another :  see  Hodgson's  report.  But  as  far 
as  I  know,  there  never  have  been  any  telekinetic  phenomena 
through  Mrs.  Piper.  Later,  in  the  Piper-Junot  sittings,  we 
find  the  control  frequently  suggesting  telekinetic  things,  but 
never  performing  them,  apparently  for  lack  of  a  telekinetic 
medium.  The  implication  seems  to  be  that  the  Hodgson 
control  could  perform  them  for  Miss  Bancroft  because  she 
was  a  telekinetic  medium  herself.  There  are  cases  where  the 
"spirits"  in  alleged  haunted  houses  say  they  can  manifest 
only  when  persons  of  mediumistic  capacity  are  present. 

"  Miss  Bancroft  had  two  more  sittings,  on  Dec.  2nd  and  3rd, 
1907.  On  Dec.  2nd  Hodgson  seemed  to  be  cognizant  of  certain 
changes  in  the  Owl's  Head  Place,  that  there  was  a  new  wall- 
paper of  yellow  color,  a  new  bath-house,  a  new  pier  and  platform, 
etc.,  none  of  which  facts  Mrs.  Piper  was  in  a  way  to  have  known. 

"  He  also  showed  veridical  knowledge  of  a  very  private  affair 
between  two  other  people,  that  had  come  under  Miss  Bancroft's 
observation " 

Telepathy  from  sitter  possible  in  both  cases,  and  good 
enough  for  a  great  portion  of  this  Hodgson  matter — for  the 
least  significant  portion — for  nearly  all  but  the  life. 

"  [ J.]  Dr.  Bayley  himself  wrote  me  after  his  sittings :  '  They 
are  pretty  good,  and  have  about  convinced  me  (as  evidence 
added  to  previous  experience)  that  my  much  loved  friend  is  still 
about.' " 

And  Dr.  Bayley  had  a  scientific  man's  imperviousness  to 
such  a  conviction!  He  adds: 

"  I  realize  that  the  average  reader  of  these  records  loses  much 
in  the  way  of  little  tricks  of  expression  and  personality,  subtle- 
ties impossible  to  give  an  account  of  in  language " 


Ch.  XLIV]  The  Control's  Memory  Surpasses  the  Sitter's  719 
Professor  Newbold's  Sittings.    (Pr.XXTII,61-T8.) 

"  The  message  given  to  Dr.  Bayley  for  '  Billy '  (i.e.,  Prof.  Win. 
R.  Newbold)  makes  it  natural  to  cite  next  the  experience  of  this 
other  intimate  friend  of  R.  H.  Prof.  Newbold  had  two  written 
sittings,  on  June  27th  and  July  3rd,  1906,  respectively 

"  R.  H. : '  Well,  well,  of  all  things !  Are  you  really  here !  I  am 
Hodgson.'  W.  R.  N. :  '  Hallo,  Dick ! '  R.  H. : '  Hello,  Billy,  God 
bless  you.'  W.  R.  N. :  '  And  you,  too,  though  you  do  not  need  to 
have  me  say  it.'  [To  me,  the  foregoing  lines  sometimes  seem 
the  most  evidential  thing  I  have  met,  but  it  could  be  telepathy — 
all  but  the  "life"  in  it.  H.H.]  R.  H.:  'I  wonder  if  you 
remember  the  last  talk  we  had  together — '  W.  R.  N. :  '  I  do  re- 
member it,  Dick.'  R.  H. : '  I  can  recall  very  well  all  I  said  to  you 
that  glorious  day  when  we  were  watching  the  waves.'  [Our  last 
talk  was  on  a  splendid  afternoon  of  July,  1905,  at  Nantasket 
Beach.— N.]  W.  R.  N. : '  Yes,  Dick,  I  remember  it  well.'  R.  H. : 
'  I  told  you  of  many,  many  predictions  which  had  been  made  for 
me.  I  told  you  I  hoped  to  realize  them  but  I  would  not  consent 
to  give  up  my  work.'  W.  R.  N. :  '  First  rate,  Dick,  you  told  me 
just  that.'  R.  H. :  '  I  would  give  up  almost  anything  else  but  my 

work my  work and  my  pipe.'  W.  R.  N. :  '  Dick,  that 

sounds  like  you.'  R.  H. :  '  Don't  you  remember  ? '  W.  R.  N. : 
'  Do  you  remember  something  I  told  you  on  the  boat  going  to 
Nantasket  ? '  R.  H. :  '  Yes  of  course.  Long  ago  you  wrote  me 
of  your  happiness  and  I  wrote  back  and  asked  you  if  you  were 
trying  to  make  me  discontented.'  W.  R.  N. :  '  I  don't  remember, 
but  I  have  your  letters  and  will  look  it  up.'  [This  allusion  to  my 
'  happiness  '  is  very  characteristic.  He  often  spoke  to  me  of  it. — 
N.]  R.  H. :  '  Look  over  your  letters  and  you  will  find  my  memory 
better  than  yours.'  W.  R.  N. :  'Like  as  not!  Like  as  not!'" 

One  of  the  strongest  evidences  for  the  spiritistic  hypothesis 
is  the  frequent  occurrence  of  just  this — the  control's  memory 
better  than  the  sitter's.  I  hope  I  don't  remark  on  it  often 
enough  to  bore  you. 

"  R.  H. : '  I  have  hoped  to  boss  things  on  this  side.'  [R.  H.  had 
often  told  me  of  his  belief  that  if  he  could  '  pass  over '  and  com- 
municate, many  of  the  difficulties  of  the  spiritualistic  theory 
would  disappear.  I  can  mentally  see  him  now  shaking  his  pipe  at 
me  threateningly  and  saying : '  If  I  get  over  before  you,  Billy,  I'll 
make  things  hot  for  you.' — N.]  W.  R.  N. :  '  Yes,  Dick,  so  you 
did.'  R.  H. :  '  Therefore  if  I  seem  bossy  pardon  me  —  -  Bossy 

Pardon.'    W.  R.  N. :  '  Go  ahead,  Dick,  be  as  bossy  as  you 

will.  I  have  nothing  to  say  to  you  until  you  get  through.' 
R.  H. :  'Good.  That's  what  I  wish.  I  remember  telling  you 
how  you  must  not  write  more  about  your  happiness.'  W.  R.  N. : 
'  Did  you  tell  me  this  on  the  trip  or  in  the  letter  ? '  R.  H. :  '  In 


720      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV. 

the  letter.'  W.  K.  N. :'  First-rate !  I  have  piles  of  letters.  I 
will  go  through  them.'  R.  H. :  'If  you  do  you  will  find  it  all. 
[I  cannot  find  it  in  the  letters. — N.]  Oh,  I  am  so  delighted  to 
see  you  of  all  persons.'  W.  R.  N. :  '  Well,  you  were  a  dear  friend 
of  mine.'  R.  H. :  'I  had  the  greatest  affection  for  you.'  W.  R. 
N. :  '  Do  you  remember  what  a  friend  you  were  to  me,  years 
ago  ? '  R.  H. :  '  Yes,  I  do,  and  how  I  helped  you  through  some 
difficulties? '  W.  R.  N. :  '  I  should  say  you  did,  Dick! '  R.  H. : 

'  But  I  do  not  care  to  remind  you  of  anything  I  did ! only 

as  a  test only  as  a  test ' " 

Does  all  this  read  more  like  Mrs.  Piper  than  Hodgson? 
We  skip  to  p.  66 : 

"  R.  H. :  '  I  will  give  it  all  eventually — eventually.  Yes.  I  am 
in  the  witness-box.'  W.  R.  N. :  '  Poor  Dick ! '  R.  H. :  '  Poor 
Dick!  Not  much!  Poor  Dick!  Not  much!  Fire  away!  I 
recall  your  psychological  teaching  very  clearly.' 

"  [R.  H.  next  goes  '  out '  to  rest,  but  returns  after  a  brief  in- 
terval of  Rector.]  '  Hello,  Billy !  All  right?  All  right  now? 
You  told  me  you  were  working  on  some  interesting  work ' " 

In  Professor  Newbold's  sitting  of  July  23,  the  subject  of 
work  is  resumed  (Pr.  XXIII,  72f.) : 

" R.  H. :  'I  told  you  I  would  not  give  up  my  work  even  for  a 
wife.'  [I  don't  recall  this  remark,  but  it  sounds  characteristic. — 
N.]  W.  R.  N. :  '  Yes,  Dick,  you  are  very  clear  and  easy  to  un- 
derstand.' R.  H. :  ' I  am  glad  to  hear  it.  I  am  trying  my  level 
best  to  give  you  facts.'  W.  R.  N. :  '  Very  good.'  R.  H. :  '  I  said 
my  pipe  and  my  work  would  not  be  given  up  even  for  a  wife. 
Oh  how  you  have  helped  me,  Billy.  Yes,  in  clearing  my  mind 
wonderfully.  [I  omit  here  a  few  sentences  from  R.  H.  in  which 
he  credits  me  with  a  remark  I  have  often  made  to  him,  seldom 
to  others. — Important  veridically. — N.]  . . .  You  said  you  could 
not  understand  why  so  many  mistakes  were  made,  and  I  talked 
you  blind,  trying  to  explain  my  ideas  of  it.'  W.  R.  N. :  '  Dick, 
this  sounds  like  your  own  self.  Just  the  way  you  used  to  talk 
to  me.'  R.  H. :  'Well  if  I  am  not  Hodgson,  he  never  lived.' 
W.  R.  N. :  '  But  you  are  so  clear.'  R.  H. :  '  Of  course  I  am,  I 
am  drawing  on  all  the  forces  possible  for  strength  to  tell  you 
these  things.  You  laughed  about  the  ungrammatical  expressions 
and  said,  why  in  the  world  do  they  use  bad  grammar? '  W.  R. 
N. :  '  Yes,  Dick,  I  said  that.'  R.  H. :  '  I  went  into  a  long  ex- 
planation and  attributed  it  to  the  registering  of  the  machine. 
You  were  rather  amused  but  were  inclined  to  leave  it  to  my 
better  understanding.'  W.  R.  N. :  '  You  mean,  I  think,  that  you 
understood  the  subject  better  than  I  and  I  took  your  explana- 
tion ? . . . '  R.  H. :  '  I  think  I  do.  I  find  now  difficulties  such  as 
a  blind  man  would  experience  in  trying  to  find  his  hat.  And  I 


Ch.  XLIV]    Crowds  of  Ante-Mortem  Reminiscences       721 

am  not  wholly  conscious  of  nay  own  utterances  because  they 
come  out  automatically,  impressed  upon  the  machine ' " 

I  wonder  how  often  you  can  stand  my  calling  attention  to 
specially  natural  personal  interplay  in  the  conversation!  I 
confess  it  is  getting  me  to  the  point  where  the  talk  about 
Mrs.  Piper's  secondary  personality  "  makes  me  very  tired." 

"W.  R.  N.:  'Can  you  see  me,  Dick?'  K.  H.:  'Yes,  but  I 
feel  your  presence  better.  I  impress  my  thoughts  on  the  machine 
which  registers  them  at  random,  and  which  are  at  times  doubt- 
less difficult  to  understand.  I  understand  so  much  better  the 
modus  operandi  than  I  did  when  I  was  in  your  world.  Do  you 
remember  you  said  you  could  faintly  understand — faintly  under- 
stand the  desire  on  the  part  of  a  friend  after  coming  to  this  side 
to  communicate  with  his  friend  on  the  earthly  side.  But  why 
he  would  choose  such  methods  were  the  most  perplexing  things 
to  you.'  W.  R.  N. :  '  No,  Dick,  you  are  thinking  of  someone  else. 
I  never  told  you  that.'  R.  H. :  '  Yes  you  did  in  the  case  of  the 
man  I  am  talking  of,  who  pretended  to  give  manifestations,  and 
you  were  right  in  your  judgment.'  W.  R.  N. :  '  Yes !  I  think  I 
did  say  it  in  that  case.'  [When  the  '  choice  of  such  methods ' 
was  first  mentioned,  I  supposed  it  referred  to  the  notion  that 
mediums  ought  to  be  persons  of  distinguished  character  or  abili- 
ties. I  therefore  disavowed  it,  for  I  have  never  seen  any  reason 
for  the  assumption.  When  it  was  referred  to  the  '  men  who  pre- 
tended to  give  manifestations,'  I  doubtfully  acknowledged  it,  sup- 
posing it  referred  to  the  so-called  'physical  phenomena,'  espe- 
cially those  of  Stain  ton  Moses.  The  objections  upon  which  I 
used  to  lay  most  stress  in  my  talks  with  H.  were  (1)  the  aston- 
ishing ignorance  often  displayed  with  reference  to  subjects  which 
the  supposed  communicators  must  have  been  acquainted  with; 
(2)  the  whole  Imperator  group,  its  historical  and  philosophical 
teachings,  its  supposed  identity  with  the  similar  group  in  the 
Stainton  Moses  case  and  its  connection  with  the  seed-pearls, 
perfumes  and  other  physical  phenomena  which  Moses  professed 
to  produce.  To  these  objections  H.  could  never  give  an  answer. 
. . . — N.]  R.  H. :  '  While  in  other  cases  you  were  open  and  clear 
to  my  explanations — and  agreed  with  me,  especially  regarding 
G.  P.'  W.  R.  N. :  '  Right !  First-rate !  That  is  all  very  char- 
acteristic.' R.  H. :  '  You  were  a  good  listener  always,  Billy,  al- 
ways  I  remember  when  you  were  with  me  I  got  very  much 

interested  in  some  letters  you  wrote  me  after  your  return  home 
your  saying  some  things  puzzled  you  very  much.'  [A  first- 
rate  veridical  statement  from  R.  H.  has  had  to  be  omitted  here. 
The  matter  referred  to  had,  however,  been  mentioned  at  sittings 
in  1895.— N.]  W.  R.  N.:  '  By  jingo!  that  is  true,  Dick.  It  was 
ten  years  ago. . . .  Do  you  remember  telling  me  that  day  that 
when  you  got  on  the  other  side  you  would  make  it  hot  for  me? ' 


722      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

R.  H. :  '  I  do  indeed  remember  it  well.  I  said  I  would  shake  you 
up — shake  you  up.'  W.  R.  N. :  '  That  is  just  the  word  you  used 
Dick.'  [I  am  not  now  sure  the  word  was  '  shake  you  up,'  but  it 
was  some  such  colloquial  expression. — N.]  R.  H. :  '  Yes,  I  did. 
Oh — I  said,  won't  I  shake  you  up  when  I  get  over  there  if  I  go 
before  you  do !  And  here  I  am,  but  I  find  my  memory  no  worse 
than  yours  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  I  have  passed  through  the 
transition  stage — state.  You  would  be  a  pretty  poor  philosopher 
if  you  were  to  forget  your  subject  as  you  seem  to  forget  some 
of  those  little  memories  which  I  recall,  Billy.  Let  me  ask  if  you 
remember  anything  about  a  lady  in  [Chicago]  to  whom  I  re- 
ferred.' W.  R.  N. :  '  Oh  Dick,  I  begin  to  remember.  About 
eight  or  nine  years  ago  was  it,  Dick  ? '  [Here  follows  the  '  Hul- 
dah'  material  already  quoted  in  my  Part  I  of  this  report. — 
W.J.]  " 

All  through  R.  H.  remembers  everything  but  names  better 
than  the  sitter.  Mrs.  P.  could  hardly  have  got  it  from  the 
sitter's  mind,  though  there  is  a  great  deal  of  talk  about  impres- 
sions latent  in  the  sitter's  mind — in  the  Cosmic  Mind,  I  ven- 
ture to  guess,  mainly  Hodgson's  portion  of  it  this  time. 

" R.  H. :  'I  heard  you  and  William — William  discussing  me, 
and  I  stood  not  one  inch  behind  you.'  W.  R.  N. :  '  William 
who?'  R.  H.:  'James.'  W.  R.  N.:  'What  did  William  James 
Bay?'  [I  recall  this  talk  with  W.  J.  last  week.— N.]  R.  H.: 
'  He  said  he  was  baffled  but  he  felt  it  was  I  talking — at  one  mo- 
ment— then  at  another  he  did  not  know  what  to  think.'  [Per- 
fectly true  of  my  conversation  with  N.  after  his  sitting  with 
Mrs.  P.  a  week  previous. — W.J.]  W.  R.  N. :  '  Did  you  hear  any- 
thing else  ? '  R.  H. :  '  Yes,  he  said  I  was  very  secretive  and 
careful.'  W.  R.  N. :  '  Did  you  hear  him  say  that? '  R.  H. :  '  He 

did.    He  said  I  was, I  am  afraid  I  am.'    W.  R.  N. :  '  I  don't 

remember  his  saying  so.'  [I  remember  it. — W.J.]  R.  H. :  'I 
tell  you  Billy  he  said  so.' " 

Did  Mrs.  P.  get  a  correct  impression  from  J.,  who  was 
absent,  rather  than  the  incorrect  impression  of  N.,  who  was 
present,  or  was  Hodgson  talking? 

"  W.  R.  N. : '  Did  he  say  anything  else  ? '  R.  H. :  «  He  paid  me 
a  great  compliment.  [I  recall  this. — N.]  I  fear  I  did  not  de- 
serve it.  However,  I  am  here  to  prove  or  disprove  through  life. 
Amen.'  [The  second  or  third  allusion  I  note  of  a  contemplation 
of  possible  death  in  the  next  world.  Possibly  a  habit  retained 
by  those  who  have  left  this  world,  more  probably,  perhaps,  the 
habit  of  the  medium  and  the  sitter.  H.H.]  " 

James  remarks  (Pr.  XXIII,  78) : 


Ch.  XLIV]    Unanswerable  Arguments  Both  Ways          723 

"  Some  persons  [those  with  a  bit  of  mediumistic  faculty,  I 
think  I  have  said  before.  H.H.]  seem  to  make  much  better  '  sit- 
ters '  than  others,  and  Prof.  Newbold  is  evidently  one  of  the  best. 
The  two  sittings  of  his  from  which  I  have  quoted  are  more  flow- 
ing and  contain  less  waste  matter,  perhaps,  than  any  others. . . . 
Not  many  items  were  certainly  wrong . . .  and  the  great  majority 
were  certainly  right.  If  two  of  the  omitted  communications 
could  have  been  printed,  they  would  have  greatly  increased  the 
veridical  effect.  Professor  Newbold  gives  me  his  own  resultant 
impression  in  the  following  words :  '  The  evidence  for  H.'s  iden- 
tity, as  for  that  of  other  communicators,  seems  to  me  very  strong 
indeed.  It  is  not  absolutely  conclusive ;  but  the  only  alternative 
theory,  the  telepathic,  seems  to  me  to  explain  the  facts  not  as 
well  as  the  spiritistic.  I  find  it,  however,  absolutely  impossible 
to  accept  the  necessary  corollaries  of  the  spiritistic  theory,  espe- 
cially those  connected  with  the  Imperator  group,  and  am  there- 
fore compelled  to  suspend  judgment.' " 

This  Imperator  group  sticks  in  almost  everybody's  crop. 
Hodgson  at  last  came  to  accept  them.  They  were  James's 
principal  stumbling  block  to  the  last.  Why  can't  they  be  put 
in  the  same  category  with  the  apparent  rubbish,  in  dreams? 
Some  dreams  are  important,  despite  the  apparent  rubbish  in 
most.  My  concluding  chapters  treat  these  views  in  consid- 
erable detail,  and  with  considerable  evidence. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  fundamental  trouble  with  these  gentry 
is  that  they  give  one  set  of  names  for  themselves  at  one  time, 
and  another  set  at  another,  or  rather  that  Stainton  Moses,  liv- 
ing, announces  that  they  give  themselves  one  set,  and  that  then 
his  alleged  spirit,  talking  through  Mrs.  Piper  to  Professor 
Newbold  (Chapter  XXXV),  says  they  gave  another.  It  is 
not  quite  plain,  however,  why  Professor  Newbold  and  Pro- 
fessor James  should  dwell  on  this  circumstance,  as  we  have 
seen  that  they  do,  any  more  than  upon  the  Wilde  and  Myers 
sealed  envelopes:  they  all  seem  about  equally  unanswerable 
against  spiritism — that  is,  unanswerable  with  our  present 
knowledge.  Opposing  them,  however,  is  perhaps  an  equal 
array — perhaps  a  greater  array,  of  unanswerable  facts  on  the 
other  side — unanswerable  with  our  present  knowledge.  All 
that  the  inquirer  can  do  is  to  determine  on  which  side  the 
preponderance  lies. 

Assuming  for  the  argument's  sake  that  those  communica- 
tions were  genuine,  they  contain  many  frank  confessions  of 


724      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV, 

error  from  Moses,  and  among  his  errors  was  that  of  coloring 
these  gentlemen  too  much  with  his  own  glasses.  But  admit- 
ting them  not  to  be  genuine,  are  they  and  other  failures  to 
count  fatally  against  the  successes?  The  argument  reminds 
me  of  the  alleged  criminal  who  said :  "  Only  two  people  swear 
they  saw  me  do  it,  while  I  can  bring  a  thousand  who  will 
swear  they  didn't." 

Weighing  both  sides  may  be  all  that  the  inquirer  can 
ever  do.  As  far  back  as  records  go,  and  in  contemporary 
savagery  of  a  grade  that  antedates  records,  man  has  been 
busy  with  this  question,  and  it  does  not  seem  improbable 
that  he  always  will  be  busy  with  it — that  the  order  of  Nature 
is  such  that  not  only  must  he  be  interested  in  it  as  long  as 
his  curiosities  and  affections  last,  but  that,  as  in  the  past,  he 
will  receive  nothing  more  than  constant  stimulus  to  his 
hopes,  never  a  demonstration  fully  satisfying  the  demands 
of  his  intellect. 

And  perhaps  it  may  be  well  if  this  shall  be  so.  The  sig- 
nificance and  value  of  a  life  depend  upon  the  ratio  between 
capacity  and  opportunity;  and  if  there  be  a  future  life  vastly 
more  important  than  the  present  one,  a  comprehension  of  it 
might  easily  reach  a  point  where  the  tantalizing  opportuni- 
ties of  that  life,  visible  but  not  available,  would  make  this 
life  appear  so  contemptible  in  comparison  as  to  paralyze  effort 
and  even  interest. 

But  there's  another  trouble  with  Imperator  and  his  group 
that  may  have  had  something  to  do  with  making  them  ob- 
stacles to  the  acceptance  of  the  spiritistic  theory  by  James 
and  Newbold.  It  is  their  "queerness."  Those  who  find  it 
an  obstacle,  and  still  more  those  who  don't,  will  not  need  any 
definition  of  it. 

When  I  found  Hodgson  (living)  making  the  sign  of  the 
cross  with  them,  and  going  through  their  ceremonies,  I  con- 
fess it  gave  me  "  that  sinking  feeling."  But  reflection  shows 
me  that  this  was  a  narrow  view  of  the  case — as  narrow  as 
some  other  views  from  which  some  of  us  like  to  think  ourselves 
emancipated.  Imperator,  Rector,  and  the  rest  of  those  amia- 
ble people — taking  things  at  their  face  value — appear  to  be 
combinations  of  sundry  early  sacerdotal  people  seen,  on  their 
first  appearance,  through  the  glasses,  so  to  speak,  of  a  modern 


Ch.  XLIV]     Heavens  Enough  to  Go  Round  725 

ritualist  clergyman.  I  don't  know  or  much  care  whether  they 
are  genuine  or  not,  but  what  argument  is  it  against  their 
genuineness  that  they  like  to  make  the  sign  of  the  cross  and 
use  the  slang  of  their  trade,  to  rise  superior  to  grammar,  and 
say  "  friend  "  on  every  available  occasion,  and  do  other  things 
according  to  their  kind?  Such  people  appear  to  have  their 
place  in  the  universe  (here  and  beyond?)  as  well  as  the  rest 
of  us,  and  if  good  old  Hodgson,  who,  after  his  reason  was 
convinced,  could  sympathize  with  anybody  or  anything,  fell 
into  some  of  their  ways,  what  argument  is  that  against  their 
ways  being  genuine  ?  Some  of  them  may  not  be  quite  to  our 
fancy,  but  a  great  many  ways  still  less  to  our  fancy  have  been 
very  genuine  indeed — horribly  genuine,  sometimes. 

If  anybody  refuses  to  accept  Imperator's  heaven  because  he 
does  not  like  it,  and  Fra  Angelico's  heaven  because  he  does 
not  like  that,  and  Milton's  or  Dante's  heaven  because  he  does 
not  like  that,  he  need  not  for  that  reason  say  there's  no 
heaven  at  all.  There  may  be  one  that  will  suit  him  exactly. 
Why  shouldn't  there  be  enough  kinds  to  go  around  ?  I  don't 
like  Imperator's,  but  I've  seen  nothing  in  G.  P.'s  that  wouldn't 
do  well  enough  for  me,  or  in  George  Eliot's,  or  in  Hodgson's, 
unless  Imperator  has  led  him  off  too  much — which,  despite  the 
signs  and  ceremonies,  seemed  very  far  from  the  case  before 
Hodgson  left  earth,  or  since,  according  to  latest  accounts, 
such  as  they  are. 

But  wherever  the  facts  came  from,  the  marvel  is  more  in  the 
dramatic  rendering  of  them  than  in  the  knowledge  of  them. 
The  investigators  have  been  very  slow  to  wake  up  to  this.  Pos- 
sibly I  have  been  too  fast,  but  it  seems  more  important  to  me 
every  day. 

/If  James  ran  any  one  of  his  virtues  into  the  ground,  perhaps 
.t  was  his  modesty  concerning  anything  connected  with  him- 
self. Instance  the  following  introduction  and  what  it  in- 
troduces: 

W.  J'»  Sitting.    (Pr.XXTn.80f .) 

u  [  J.]  The  evidence  is  so  much  the  same  sort  of  thing  through- 
out, and  makes  such  insipid  reading,  that  I  hesitate  to  print 
more  of  it  in  full.  But  I  know  that  many  critics  insist  on 
having  the  largest  possible  amount  of  verbatim  material  on 


726      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

which  to  base  their  conclusions,  so  I  select  as  a  specimen  of  the 
R.  H.  control's  utterances  when  he  was  less  '  strong,'  one  of  two 
voice-sittings  which  I  had  with  him  myself  (May  21st,  1906). 
The  reader,  I  fear,  will  find  it  long  and  tedious,  but  he  can  skip. 

"  (R.  H.  enters,  saying:)  'Well,  well,  well,  well!  Well,  well, 

well,  that  is  here  I  am.  Good  morning,  good  morning, 

Alice.'  Mrs.  W.  J. :  '  Good  morning,  Mr.  Hodgson.'  R.  H. :  <  I 
am  right  here.  Well,  well,  well  I  I  am  delighted ! '  W.  J. : 
'  Hurrah !  R.  H. !  Give  us  your  hand ! '  R.  H. :  '  Hurrah,  Wil- 
liam !  God  bless  you.  How  are  you  V  W.  J. :  '  First  rate.' 
R.  H. :  '  Well,  I  am  delighted  to  see  you.  Well,  have  you  solved 
those  problems  yet  ? '  W.  J. :  '  Which  problems  do  you  refer  to  ? ' 
R.  H. :  '  Did  you  get  my  messages  ? '  W.  J. :  '  I  got  some  mes- 
sages about  your  going  to  convert  me.'  R.  H. :  '  Did  you  hear 
about  that  argument  that  I  had  ?  You  asked  me  what  I  had  been 
doing  all  those  years,  and  what  it  amounted  to  ? '  [R.  H.  had 
already  sent  me,  through  other  sitters,  messages  about  my  little 
f aith.— W. J.]  W.  J. :  '  Yes.'  R.  H. :  '  Well,  it  has  amounted  to 
this, — that  I  have  learned  by  experience  that  there  is  more  truth 
than  error  in  what  I  have  been  studying.'  W.  J. :  '  Good ! ' 
R.  H. :  '  I  am  so  delighted  to  see  you  to-day  that  words  fail  me.' 
W.  J. :  '  Well,  Hodgson,  take  your  time  and  don't  be  nervous.' 
R.  H. :  '  No.  Well,  I  think  I  could  ask  the  same  of  you !  Well, 
now,  tell  me, — I  am  very  much  interested  in  what  is  going 
on  in  the  society,  and  Myers  and  I  are  also  interested  in 
the  society  over  here.  You  understand  that  we  have  to  have 
a  medium  on  this  side,  while  you  have  a  medium  on  your 
side,  and  through  the  two  we  communicate  with  you.'  W.  J. : 
'  And  your  medium  is  who  ? '  R.  H. :  '  We  have  a  medium 
on  this  side.  It  is  a  lady.  I  don't  think  she  is  known  to  you.' 
W.  J. :  '  You  don't  mean  Rector? '  R.  H. :  '  No,  not  at  all.  It  is 

do  you  remember  a  medium  whom  we  called  Prudens  ? ' 

W.  J. :  '  Yes.'  [His  not  naming  G.  P.  or  Rector  gives  decided 
food  for  skepticism.  H.H.] 

"  R.  H. : '  What  I  want  to  know  first  of  all  is  about  the  society. 
I  am  sorry  that  it  could  not  go  on.'  W.  J. :  *  There  was  nobody  to 
take  your  place. . . .  Hyslop  is  going  to, — well,  perhaps  you  can 
find  out  for  yourself  what  he  is  going  to  do.'  R.  H. :  'I  know 
what  he  is  going  to  do,  and  we  are  all  trying  to  help  Hyslop,  and 
trying  to  make  him  more  conservative,  and  keener  in  understand- 
ing the  necessity  of  being  secretive.'  W.  J. :  '  You  must  help  all 
you  can.  He  is  splendid  on  the  interpreting  side,  discussing  the 
sittings,  and  so  forth.'  R.  H. :  '  I  know  he  is,  but  what  a  time  I 
had  with  him  in  writing  that  big  report.  It  was  awful,  perfectly 
awful.  I  shall  never  forget  it.  [Hodgson  had  tried  to  get 
Hyslop's  report  in  S.P.R.  Proceedings,  Vol.  XVI,  made  shorter, 
a  fact  possibly  known  to  the  medium. — W. J.]  . . .  William,  can't 
you  see,  don't  you  understand,  and  don't  you  remember  how  I 
used  to  walk  up  and  down  before  that  open  fireplace  trying  to 


Ch.  XLIV]      Remarkable  Talks'  with  James  727 

convince  you  of  my  experiments  ? '  W.  J. : '  Certainly,  certainly.' 
R.  H. :  '  And  you  would  stand  with  your  hands  in  your  trousers 
pockets.  You  got  very  impatient  with  me  sometimes,  and  you 
would  wonder  if  I  was  correct.  I  think  you  are  very  skeptical.' 
W.  J. :  '  Since  you  have  been  returning  I  am  much  more  near  to 
feeling  as  you  felt  than  ever  before.'  R.  H. :  '  Good !  Well,  that 
is  capital.'  W.  J. :  '  Your  "  personality  "  is  beginning  to  make 
me  feel  as  you  felt.'  R.  H. :  '  If  you  can  give  up  to  it,  William, 
and  feel  the  influence  of  it  and  the  reality  of  it,  it  will  take  away 

the  sting  of  death Now  tell  me  a  little  bit  more  about  the 

Society.  That  will  help  me  keep  my  thoughts  clear.  I  think, 
William — are  you  standing?'  W.  J. :  'Yes,  I  am  standing.' 
R.  H. :  «  Well,  can't  you  sit? '  W.  J. :  '  Yes.'  R.  H. :  '  Well,  sit. 
Let's  have  a  nice  talk.' " 

There  is  little  "  evidential "  about  the  last  couple  of  lines 
in  the  scientific  sense,  but  there  are  several  kinds  of  sense. 

"R.  H. :  'I  want  to  ask  you  if  you  have  met  at  all  Miss 
Gaule?'  W.  J. :  'Maggie  Gaule?  I  have  not  met  her.'  [A 
medium  known  to  R.  H.  during  life,  probably  also  known  by 
name  to  Mrs.  P. — W.  J.]  R.  H. :  '  I  am  very  much  disappointed 
in  some  respects.  I  have  tried  to  reach  her.  [In  1908,  Hyslop 
got  messages  from  R.  H.  through  Miss  Gaule. — W.J.]  I  have 
reached  another  light  and  I  did  succeed  in  getting  a  communica- 
tion through.'  W.  J. :  '  What  was  your  communication  ? '  R.  H. : 
'  I  did  not  believe  in  her  when  I  was  in  the  body.  I  thought  she 
was  insincere,  but  I  believe  her  now  and  know  that  she  has 
genuine  light,  and  I  gave  a  message  recently  to  a  Mrs.  M.  in 
the  body.  I  referred  to  my  books  and  my  papers  and  several 
other  things.  Her  name  is  Soule.'  [R.  H.  acted  as  Mrs. 
Soule's  control,  and  something  like  incipient  cross-corre- 
spondences were  obtained. — W.J.]  . . .  W.  J. :  '  Why  can't  you 
tell  me  more  about  the  other  life  ? '  R.  H. :  '  That  is  a 
part  of  my  work.  I  intend  to  give  you  a  better  idea  of  this 
life  than  has  ever  been  given.'  W.  J. :  'I  hope  so.'  R.  H. : 
'  It  is  not  a  vague  fantasy  but  a  reality.'  Mrs.  J. :  '  Hodgson, 
do  you  live  as  we  do,  as  men  do? '  R.  H. : '  What  does  she  say? ' 
W.  J. :  '  Do  you  live  as  men  do  ? '  Mrs.  J. :  '  Do  you  wear  cloth- 
ing and  live  in  houses  ? '  R.  H. :  '  Oh,  yes,  houses,  but  not  cloth- 
ing. No,  that  is  absurd.  [Query:  the  clothing?  or  the  state- 
ment made  about  it  ? — W. J.]  Just  wait  a  moment.  I  am  going 
to  get  out.'  W.  J. :  '  You  will  come  back  again  ? '  R.  H. :  '  Yes.' 
Rector :  '  He  has  got  to  go  out  and  get  his  breath.' " 

Perhaps  it  is  a  little  too  often  that  a  question  has  to  be 
asked  twice,  or  the  control  has  to  "get  out,"  or  something 
else  happens  when  anybody  asks  about  the  life  on  the  other 
side,  though  G.  P.  did  tell  me  that  they  are  free  from  bodily 


728      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

ills  there,  and  many  others  say  the  same,  and  then  turn 
around  and  enact  what  they  suffered  here.     Is  it  all  "  for 
evidential  purposes"? 
We  skip  half  a  dozen  pages  to  Pr.  XXIII,  94. 

"  R.  H. :  '  Now  I  want, — William,  I  want  one  thing.  I  want 
you  to  get  hold  of  the  spiritual  side  of  this  thing  and  not  only 
the  physical  side.  I  want  you  to  feel  intuitively  and  instinc- 
tively the  spiritual  truth,  and  when  you  do  that  you  will  be 
happy,  and  you  will  find  that  I  was  not  idling  and  was  not 
spending  my  time  on  nonsense ;  and  as  I  thought  over  all,  as  it 
came  to  me  after  I  entered  this  life,  I  thought  "  What  folly !  If 
I  could  only  get  hold  of  him !  "  W.  J. :  '  I  wish  that  what  you 
say  could  grow  more  continuous.  That  would  convince  me.  You 
are  very  much  like  your  old  self,  but  you  are  curiously  fragmen- 
tary.' R.  H. :  '  Yes,  but  you  must  not  expect  too  much  from  me, 
that  I  could  talk  over  the  lines  and  talk  as  coherently  as  in  the 
body.  You  must  not  expect  too  much,  but  take  things  little  by 
little  as  they  come  and  make  the  best  of  it,  and  then  you  must 
put  the  pieces  together  and  make  a  whole  out  of  it.  Before  I 
lose  my  breath  [Again!  H.H.],  is  there  any  other  question  you 
want  to  ask  me?  What  do  you  think  of  that  bust,  William?  I 
don't  quite  approve  of  it.  I  think  it  is  all  nonsense.'  [On  March 
12th  Mr.  Dorr  had  told  the  R.  H.  control  that  Mr.  Biela  Pratt 
had  begun  to  model  a  bust  of  him  for  the  Tavern  Club.]  W.  J. : 
'  I  do  not  know  anything  about  it.  I  have  not  seen  it.  But  it 
is  a  natural  thing  for  the  Tavern  Club  to  want  of  you,  they  were 
so  fond  of  you,  all  of  them.'  R.  H. :  'I  want  to  know,  William, 
what  is  that  you  are  writing  about  me  ? '  W.  J. :  '  I  am  not 
writing  anything  about  you  at  present.'  R.  H. :  '  Aren't  you 
going  to ? '  W.  J. :  ' Perhaps  so.'  R.  H. :  'Can  I  help  you  out 
any  ? '  W.  J. :  '  Yes,  I  want  you  to  help  me  out  very  much.  I 
am  going  to  write  about  these  communications  of  yours.  I  want 
to  study  them  out  very  carefully,  everything  that  you  say  to  any 
sitter.'  R.  H. :  '  Well,  that  is  splendid.  You  could  hot  have  said 
anything  to  please  me  more  than  that.'  W.  J. :  '  I  am  glad  you 
approve  of  my  taking  it  in  hand.'  R.  H. :  '  Yes,  I  do.  Of  all 
persons  you  are  the  one.'  W.  J. :  'I'll  try  to  glorify  you  as 
much  as  I  can ! '  R.  H. :  '  Oh,  I  don't  care  about  that.  I  would 
like  to  have  the  truth  known,  and  I  would  like  to  have  you  work 
up  these  statements  as  proof  that  I  am  not  annihilated. . . .  You 
must  remember  I  have  not  been  over  here  an  endless  number  of 
days?  but  I  wish  they  would  all  try  as  hard  as  I  have  tried  to 
give  proof  of  their  identity  so  soon  after  coming  over.'  W.  J. : 
'  I  wish  you  would  more  and  more  get  Rector  to  let  you  take  his 
place.  You  do  all  the  talking  and  let  Rector  have  a  rest.  And 
it  would  be  much  better,  I  think,  for  you  to  take  control  of  the 
light,  and  for  me  particularly.'  R.  H. : '  Yes,  that  is  a  very  good 


Ch.  XLIV]    Control's  Failures  Support  Spiritism  729 

suggestion,  very  good.'  W.  J. :  'Because  I  want  to  write  this 
up,  and  the  time  taken  by  Rector  is  so  much  lost  from  you.' 
R.  H. :  '  But  he  repeats  for  me  very  cleverly,  and  he  understands 
the  management  of  the  light.  I  want  to  speak  with  Alice  a 
moment,  and  then  I  shall  have  to  leave  you,  I  suppose.'  Mrs.  J. : 
'  Mr.  Hodgson,  I  am  so  glad  to  know  that  you  can  come  at  all.' 
R.  H. : '  Well,  you  were  always  a  great  help  to  me,  you  always  did 
see  me,  but  poor  William  was  blind.  But  we  shall  wholly 
straighten  him  out  and  put  him  on  the  right  track. ...  I  am 
sorry  to  be  off  so  soon,  but  I  know  there  are  difficulties  in  re- 
maining too  long.  They  often  told  me  too  frequent  communica- 
tion was  not  good  for  anyone.  I  understand  what  that  means 
now  better  than  ever.  I  am  going  to  look  up  one  or  two  cases 
and  put  you  on  the  track  of  them,  William,  when  I  can  com- 
municate here, — at  the  same  time  repeat  the  messages  elsewhere.' 
[An  early  looking  forward  to  cross-correspondences,  see  Chapter 
XL VII.  H.H.]  W.  J.:  'That  is  first  rate.'  R.  H.:  'I  think 
that  is  one  of  the  best  things  I  can  do.  Now  I  am  going  to 
skedaddle.  Good-by,  William.  God  bless  you.  Give  my  love 
to  the  boys.' " 

James  remarks  (Pr.  XXIII,  97-8)  : 

"  The  sitting,  although  quite  compatible  with  the  spiritual 
explanation,  seems  to  me  to  have  but  little  evidential  force. 
["  Evidential  force  "  is  of  course  a  matter  of  definition.  H.H.] 
The  same  is  true  of  the  second  sitting  which  I  had  a  fortnight 
later.  Much  of  it  went  over  the  same  matters,  with  no  better 
results.  I  vainly  tried  to  make  Hodgson  remember  a  certain 
article  he  had  written  for  Mind  in  1885,  and  to  give  the  name  of 
Thomas  Brown,  whom  he  had  praised  there.  Neither  could  he 
remember  anything  about  the  American  Society  for  Psychical 
Research,  as  he  found  it  on  arriving  in  this  country.. ..  [He 
remembered  enough  about  it  as  he  left  it  and  after  he  left  it. 
Cf.  ante.  H.H.]  He  insisted  much  on  my  having  said  of  a 
certain  lady  '  God  bless  the  roof  that  covers  her.'  I  trust  I  may 
have  said  this  of  many  ladies,  but  R.  H.  could  lead  me  to  no 
identification." 

On  the  theory  of  telepathy  from  the  sitter,  Mrs.  Piper 
could  have  had  from  James  all  that  Hodgson  lacked.  That 
theory  is  failing  all  the  time.  The  very  incapacities  of  the 
control  make  for  spiritism.  James  continues : 

"  The  only  queer  thing  that  happened  at  this  sitting  was  the 
following  incident.  A  lady  had  sent  me  a  pair  of  gloves  as  an 
'  influence '  to  elicit,  if  possible,  a  message  from  her  husband, 
who  had  recently  committed  suicide.  I  put  the  gloves  into  Mrs. 
Piper's  hand,  naturally  without  a  word  of  information  about  the 


730      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

case,  when  'Hodgson,'  who  had  been  speaking,  said,  witl.  a 
rather  startling  change  of  his  voice  into  a  serious  and  confiden- 
tial tone,  that  he  had  just  seen  the  father  (known  to  us  both  in 
life)  of  a  young  man  who  a  few  years  before  had  made  away 
with  himself.  '  I  never  knew  it  till  I  came  over  here.  I  think 
they  kept  it  very  quiet,  but  it  is  true,  and  it  hastened  the  father's 
coming.' " 

Two  Sittings  of  Miss  M.  Bergman.    (Pr.XXIII,99f.) 

" [I  had  become  so  discouraged  by  the  great  difficulty  of 

reading  the  writing  and  the  confusion  in  making  things  clear 
that  I  felt  very  indifferent  and  inert  in  mind. — M.B.]  R.  H. : 
*  Bosh.'  Miss  B. :  '  What  do  you  mean  by  that  ? '  E.  H. :  '  You 
understand  well.'  Miss  B.: 'Bosh?'  R.  H. :  '  Yes,  I  say  bosh. 
BOSH  BOSH'  Miss  B. :  '  What  do  you  mean  by  that? ' 
E.  H.:  'Oh  I  say  it  is  all  bosh/  Miss  B,:  'What  is  bosh?' 
R.  H. :  '  Why  the  way  you  understand.  It  is  simply  awful.' 
Miss  B. :  '  That  sounds  like  you,  Dr.  Hodgson.'  R.  H. :  '  I  could 
shake  you.'  Miss  B. :  '  How  can  I  do  better? '  R.  H. :  '  Put  all 
your  wits  to  it,  you  have  plenty  of  them.'  Miss  B. :  '  I  will  do 
my  best.  Go  on.'  R.  H. :  'Do.  Do  you  remember  I  used  to 
chaff  you.'  Miss  B. :  '  Indeed  I  do.'  R.  H. :  '  Well  I  am  still 
chaffing  you  a  bit  just  for  recognition.'  Miss  B. :  'It  helps.' 
R.  H. : '  Amen.  Now  you  are  waking  up  a  bit.'  Miss  B. : '  I  am.' 
R.  H. :  '  Capital.  So  am  I.  Don't  you  remember  I  told  you  I 
would  show  you  how  to  manage  if  I  ever  came  over  before  you 
did.'  Miss  B. : '  Indeed  I  do.'  R.  H. :  '  Well  now  I  am  trying  to 
show  you.  I  used  to  scold  you  right  and  left  and  I  shall  have  to 
keep  it  up,  I  think,  unless  you  do  better.'  Miss  B. :  '  I  deserve 

it Have  you  a  message  for  Theo  [Miss  Theodate  Pope]  ? ' 

R.  H. :  '  Yes  indeed  give  her  my  love  and  tell  her  I  am  not  going 
to  forsake  her.  I  do  not  think  she  has  been  keeping  straight  to 
the  mark.'  Miss  B. :  '  What  do  you  mean  by  that  ? '  R.  H. :  '  I 
think  she  has  been  getting  a  little  mixed  up  in  her  thoughts  and 
ideas  of  us  over  here.  I  am  the  same  old  sixpence  and  I  wish 
she  were  the  same.  I  want  to  see  her  very  much.'  ['  Theo '  had 
had  no  sitting  for  a  long  time,  her  interest  being  lessened  by  the 
circumstance  that  records  of  several  sittings  had  not  been  kept 
systematically,  as  before  Dr.  Hodgson's  death.  At  this  point  the 
hand  wrote  comments  relating  to  circumstances  which  had  arisen 
in  Theo's  life  since  Dr.  Hodgson's  death.  These  comments  were 
singularly  appropriate. — M.B.]  " 

But  Miss  B.  knew  them.    Though  I  confess  that,  as  I  read, 
Buch  a  fact  makes  less  and  less  difference  to  me. 

"  At  the  second  sitting,  when  R.  H.  appeared,  the  voice  began 
speaking  very  rapidly  and  heartily: 
" '  Well,  well,  well,  this  is  Miss  Bergman ;  hullo !    I  felt  as 


Ch.  XLIY]       James's  Evidential  Incidents  731 

though  I  could  shake  you  yesterday.'    Miss  B. :  'Well,  I  was 

pretty  stupid.    I  think  we  can  do  better  to-day Did  you  leave 

other  messages  ? '  R.  H. :  '. . .  Every  message  given  at  this  light 
must  be  repeated  through  Mrs.  Verrall  before  anyone  opens  any 
of  my  sealed  messages.  Mrs.  Verrall  is  the  clearest  light  except 
this  which  I  have  found.  Moreover  she  has  a  beautiful  character 
and  is  perfectly  honest.  That  is  saying  a  great  deal.  [The 
reader  will  notice  that  Mrs.  Piper  had  been  in  England  [where 
she  often  met  Mrs.  Verrall.  H.H.]  and  returned,  at  the  date  of 
the  sittings  with  Miss  Bergman. — W.J.]  ...  It  is  never  the  way 
to  get  the  best  results  by  peppering  with  questions.  Intelligences 
come  with  minds  filled  and  questions  often  put  everything  out 

of  their  thought Will  thinks  I  ought  to  walk  into  the  room 

bodily  and  shake  hands  with  him.  I  heard  him  say  "  Hodgson 
isn't  so  much  of  a  power  on  the  other  side."  What  does  he  think 
a  man  in  the  ethereal  body  is  going  to  do  with  a  man  in  the 
physical  body?'  [Seems  to  show  some  supernormal  knowledge 
of  the  state  of  my  mind. — W. J.]  Miss  B. :  'To  whom  did  you 
speak  first  from  that  world  ? '  R.  H. :  '  Theodate,  yes,  Theodate, 
she  was  the  one  to  whom  I  first  spoke.'  [Correct.]  " 

From  eleven  incidents  cited  by  James  as  of  "evidential" 
value,  I  quote  the  following.  I  don't  see  anything  of  what  he 
calls  "  evidential  value  "  in  it.  According  to  the  standards  set 
up  by  him  and  some  others,  it  could  be  accounted  for  by 
telepathy — all  but  its  most  important  features. 

(Pr.XXin,109) :  "The  following  incident  belongs  to  my 
wife's  and  Miss  Putnam's  sitting  of  June  12th,  1906 : — Mrs.  J. 
said :  '  Do  you  remember  what  happened  in  our  library  one  night 
when  you  were  arguing  with  Margie  [Mrs.  J.'s  sister]  ? ' — '  I 
had  hardly  said  "  remember," '  she  notes,  '  in  asking  this  ques- 
tion, when  the  medium's  arm  was  stretched  out  and  the  fist 
shaken  threateningly,'  then  these  words  came: 

"  R.  H. :  '  Yes,  I  did  this  in  her  face.  I  couldn't  help  it.  She 
was  so  impossible  to  move.  It  was  wrong  of  me,  but  I  couldn't 
help  it.'  [I  myself  well  remember  this  fist-shaking  incident,  and 
how  we  others  laughed  over  it  after  Hodgson  had  taken  his 
leave.  What  had  made  him  so  angry  was  my  sister-in-law's  de- 
fense of  some  slate-writing  she  had  seen  in  California. — W.J.]  " 

(Pr.XXIII.llO) :  "  At  a  written  sitting  at  which  I  was  pres- 
ent (July  29th,  1907)  the  following  came: 

"  R.  H. :  '  You  seem  to  think  I  have  lost  my  equilibrium. 
Nothing  of  the  sort.'  W.  J.:  'You've  lost  your  handwriting, 
gone  from  bad  to  worse.'  R.  H. :  'I  never  had  any  to  lose.' 
Mrs.  M. :  'It  was  a  perfectly  beautiful  handwriting'  [ironical]. 
R.  H. :  '  Ahem!  Ahem!  William,  do  you  remember  my  writing 
you  a  long  letter  once  when  you  were  ill?  You  had  to  get 


732      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

Margaret  [my  daughter — W.J.]  to  help  you  read  it  and  you 
wrote  me  it  was  detestable  writing  and  you  hoped  I  would  try 
and  write  plainer  to  a  friend  who  was  ill,  next  time.  How  I 
laughed  over  that,  but  I  was  really  sorry  to  make  you  wade 
through  it.  Ask  Margaret  if  she  remembers  it.'  [Perfectly — it 
was  in  London. — M.M.J.]  " 

No  matter  how  much  knowledge  Mrs.  Piper  might  get  tel- 
epathically,  this  dramatic  verisimilitude  could  not  have  been 
constructed  on  the  spur  of  the  moment  by  her  or  anybody  else, 
even  once,  not  to  speak  of  myriads  of  times.  She  could  have 
dreamed  it,  but  I  doubt  if  we  do  our  own  dreaming,  for  reasons 
given  in  Chapter  LIV.  I  confess  that,  as  I  am  now  reading 
over  this  matter  for  the  fourth  or  fifth  time,  accounting  for  it 
by  anything  Mrs.  Piper  can  do,  voluntarily  or  involuntarily, 
is  beginning  to  seem  to  me  to  verge  on  the  ridiculous. 

(Pr.XXIILlll) :  "R.  H.:  'Do  you  remember  a  story  I  told 
you  about  my  old  friend  Sidgwick  ?  Don't  you  remember  how  I 
imitated  him  ? '  Miss  P. :  '  Yes,  what  word  did  you  say  about 
Sidgwick  ? '  [I  had  not  deciphered  the  word  '  imitated.' — T.P.] 
R.  H. :  '  If  I  believed  in  it  they  would  say  I  was  in  the  trick/ 
[Still  not  understanding,  T.  P.  said :]  Miss  P. :  '  What  about 
Sidgwick? '  R.  H. : '  I  imitated  him.'  Miss  P. :  '  What  did  you 
do  ? '  R.  H. :  '  I  said  s-s-s-should-be  i-n  th-e  t-r-i-c-k.'  Miss  P. : 
'  I  remember  perfectly,  that's  fine.'  R.  H. : '  No  one  living  could 
know  it  but  yourself  and  Mary  Bergman.' 

"  [It  was  most  interesting  to  see  the  hand  write  these  words 
to  imitate  stuttering,  and  then  for  the  first  time  it  flashed  over 
me  what  he  had  some  time  ago  told  Mary  and  me  about  Sidg- 
wick, imitating  at  the  same  time  Sidgwick's  stammer :  '  H-Hodg- 
son,  if  you  b-b-believe  in  it,  you'll  b-be  said  to  be  in  the  t-trick.' 
I  cannot  quote  the  exact  words,  but  this  is  very  nearly  right. 
Sidgwick  referred  to  Hodgson's  belief  that  he  was  actually  com- 
municating, through  Mrs.  Piper,  with  spirits.  He  meant  that 
people  not  only  would  not  believe  what  Hodgson  gave  as  evidence, 
but  would  think  he  was  in  collusion  with  Mrs.  Piper. — T.P.]  " 

(Pr.XXIII,112) :  "  On  Jan.  30,  1906,  Mrs.  M.  had  a  sitting. 
Mrs.  M.  said : 

" '  Do  you  remember  our  last  talk  together,  at  N.,  and  how, 
in  coming  home  we  talked  about  the  work?'  (R.  H.) :  'Yes, 
yes.'  Mrs.  M. :  '  And  I  said  if  we  had  a  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars—' R.  H. : '  Buying  Billy ! ! '  Mrs.  M. : '  Yes,  Dick,  that  was 
it— "buying  Billy.'"  R.  H.:  'Buying  only  Billy?'  Mrs.  M.: 
'  Oh  no — I  wanted  Schiller  too.  How  well  you  remember ! ' 

"  Mrs.  M.,  before  R.  H.'s  death,  had  had  dreams  of  extending 
the  American  Branch's  operations  by  getting  an  endowment, 


Ch.  XLIV]    Podmore  'Admits  Super-usual  Proofs  733 

and  possibly  inducing  Prof.  Newbold  (Billy)  and  Dr.  Schiller  to 
co-operate  in  work.  She  naturally  regards  this  veridical  recall, 
by  the  control,  of  a  private  conversation  she  had  had  with  Hodg- 
son as  very  evidential  of  his  survival." 

This  buying  Billy  and  Schiller  brought  Podmore  squarely 
around,  for  the  first  time,  I  think,  from  his  previous  life-long 
fight  against  telepathy.  He  says  (New.  Spir.,  p.  222) : 

"  It  is  impossible  to  doubt  that  we  have  here  proof  of  a  super- 
normal agency  of  some  kind — either  telepathy  by  the  trance  in- 
telligence from  the  sitter  or  some  kind  of  communication  with 
the  dead." 

Two  pages  farther  on,  however,  appears  the  advocatus 
diaboli  (New.  Spir.,  p.  224)  : 

"  When  asked  to  give  the  contents  of  any  sealed  letters  written 
in  his  life-time  for  the  express  purpose  of  being  read  by  him 
after  death  the  two  sentences  were  given : '  There  is  no  death '  and 
'  out  of  life  into  life  eternal '  (p.  102.)  Whatever  Hodgson  may 
have  written,  it  was  surely  not  quite  so  commonplace  as  that." 

To  my  gullible  apprehension,  it  seems  eminently  appro- 
priate. 

(Pr.XXni,113-4) :  "  Among  my  own  friends  in  the  Harvard 
faculty  who  had  '  passed  over '  the  most  intimate  was  F.  J.  Child. 
Hodgson  during  life  had  never  met  Professor  Child.  It  looks  to 
me  like  a  supernormal  reading  of  my  own  mental  states  (for  I 
had  often  said  that  the  best  argument  I  knew  for  an  immortal 
life  was  the  existence  of  a  man  who  deserved  one  as  well  as  Child 
did)  that  a  message  to  me  about  him  should  have  been  spon- 
taneously produced  by  the  R.  H.  control.  I  had  assuredly  never 
mentioned  C.  to  Mrs.  Piper,  had  never  before  had  a  message 
from  his  spirit,  and  if  I  had  expressed  my  feelings  about  him 
to  the  living  R.  H.,  that  would  make  the  matter  only  more  evi- 
dential. The  message  through  R.  H.  came  to  Miss  Robbins, 
June  6th,  1906. 

"  R.  H. :  '  There  is  a  man  named  Child  passed  out  suddenly, 
wants  to  send  his  love  to  William  and  his  wife  in  the  body.' 
Miss  R. : '  Child's  wife  ? '  R.  H. :  '  Yes,  in  the  body.  He  says . . . 
I  hope  L.  will  understand  what  I  mean.  I  [i.e.,  R.  H.]  don't 
know  who  L.  is.'  [L.  is  the  initial  of  the  Christian  name  of  Pro- 
fessor Child's  widow— W.J.]  " 

Too  dramatic  for  Mrs.  P.  or  anybody  else  in  the  flesh. 
James  says  (Pr.  XXIII,  115)  : 

"  These  eleven  incidents  [only  a  few  of  which  I  have  quoted. 
H.H.]  sound  more  like  deliberate  truth-telling,  whoever  the 


734      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV. 

truth-teller  be,  than  like  lucky  flukes.  On  the  whole  they  make 
on  me  the  impression  of  being  supernormal.  I  confess  that  I 
should  at  this  moment  much  like  to  know  (although  I  have  no 
means  of  knowing)  just  how  all  the  documents  I  am  exhibiting 
in  this  report  will  strike  readers  who  are  either  novices  in  the 
field,  or  who  consider  the  subject  in  general  to  be  pure  '  rot '  or 
'  bosh.' " 

As  an  erstwhile  "  novice  in  the  field/'  I  am  willing,  at  the 
cost  of  some  repetition,  to  record  how  they  have  struck  me, 
whatever  may  be  the  chance  of  my  quondam  friend  James' 
reading  the  record. 

For  years  after  my  sittings  with  Foster  and  Mrs.  Piper,  up 
to  my  studies  expressly  for  this  volume,  I  accounted  for  most 
of  the  cases  by  telepathy  from  the  sitter,  and  for  the  rest  by 
teloteropathy.  But  after  reading  the  S.  P.  B.  records  over 
and  over  and  over  again,  I  find  myself  no  longer  able  to  do  so. 
The  eleven  incidents  dwelt  on  by  James  are  among  the  best, 
but  there  are  many  others  equally  good,  and  perhaps  a  few 
better.  The  best  I  think  is  the  growing  up  of  the  Junot  boy 
in  the  last  sittings  I  quote.  The  simpler  points  in  all  may 
have  been  only  telepathic,  but  who  or  what  is  the  unsurpassed 
dramatist  who  threw  them  into  shape?  My  feeling  has 
gradually  grown  into  impatience  with  the  old-fashioned  stock 
explanations,  or  anything  o!se  short  of  suspended  judgment, 
and  I  have  more  and  more  patience  with  those  who  go  beyond 
that. 

James  continues  (Pr.  XXIII,  115)  : 

"  It  seems  to  me  not  impossible  that  a  bosh-philosopher  here 
or  there  may  get  a  dramatic  impression  of  there  being  something 
genuine  behind  it  all.  Most  of  those  who  remain  faithful  to  the 
'  bosh  '-interpretation  would,  however,  find  plenty  of  comfort  if 
they  had  the  entire  mass  of  records  given  them  to  read.  Not 
that  I  have  left  things  out  (I  certainly  have  tried  not  to!)  that 
would,  if  printed,  discredit  the  detail  of  what  I  cite,  but  I  have 
left  out,  by  not  citing  the  whole  mass  of  records,  so  much  mere 
mannerism,  so  much  repetition,  hesitation,  irrelevance,  unintelli- 
gibility,  so  much  obvious  groping  and  fishing  and  plausible  cov- 
ering up  of  false  tracks,  so  much  false  pretension  to  power,  and 
real  obedience  to  suggestion,  that  the  stream  of  veridicality  that 
runs  throughout  the  whole  gets  lost  as  it  were  in  a  marsh  of 
feebleness,  and  the  total  dramatic  effect  on  the  mind  may  be 
little  more  than  the  word  '  Humbug.'  The  really  significant 
items  disappear  in  the  total  bulk.  '  Passwords,'  for  example,  and 


Ch.  XLIV]    James  Admits  Supernormal  Knowledge       735 

sealed  messages  are  given  in  abundance,  but  can't  be  found.  (I 
omit  these  here,  as  some  of  them  may  prove  veridical  later.) 
Preposterous  Latin  sentences  are  written,  e.g.,  '  Nebus  merica 
este  fecrum ' — or  what  reads  like  that  (April  4th,  1906).  Poetry 
gushes  out,  but  how  can  one  be  sure  that  Mrs.  Piper  never  knew 
it?  The  weak  talk  of  the  Imperator  band  about  time  is  repro- 
duced, as  where  R.  H.  pretends  that  he  no  longer  knows  what 
'  seven  minutes  '  mean  (May  14th,  1906).  Names  asked  for  can't 
be  given,  etc.,  etc.1  All  this  mass  of  diluting  material,  which 
can't  be  reproduced  in  abridgment,  has  its  inevitable  dramatic 
effect;  and  if  one  tends  to  hate  the  whole  phenomenon  anyhow 
(as  I  confess  that  I  myself  sometimes  do)  one's  judicial  verdict 
inclines  accordingly." 

"  [NOTE. — 1  For  instance,  on  July  2nd,  the  sitter  asks  R.  H. 
to  name  some  of  his  cronies  at  the  Tavern  Club.  Hodgson  gives 
six  names,  only  five  of  which  belonged  to  the  Tavern  Club,  and 
those  five  were  known  to  the  controls  already.  None  of  them,  I 
believe,  were  those  asked  for,  namely,  '  names  of  the  men  he  used 
to  play  pool  with  or  go  swimming  with  at  Nantasket.'  Yet,  as 
the  sitter  (Mr.  Dorr)  writes,  '  He  failed  to  realize  his  failure.' " 

I  wonder  if  James  would  have  hated  it  less  if  he  had 
thought,  in  the  connection,  of  what  a  mass  of  "humbug" 
most  of  the  dreams  of  a  lifetime  are,  and  yet  of  what  impor- 
tance two  or  three  may  be!  He  continues: 

"  Nevertheless,  I  have  to  confess  also  that  the  more  familiar  I 
have  become  with  the  records,  the  less  relative  significance  for 
my  mind  has  all  this  diluting  material  tended  to  assume.  The 
active  cause  of  the  communications  is  on  any  hypothesis  a  will 
of  some  kind,  be  it  the  will  of  R.  H.'s  spirit,  of  lower  supernatu- 
ral intelligences,  or  of  Mrs.  Piper's  subliminal ...  a  will  to  say 
something  which  the  machinery  fails  to  bring  through.  Dra- 
matically, most  of  this  '  bosh '  is  more  suggestive  to  me  of  dream- 
iness and  mind-wandering  than  it  is  of  humbug.  Why  should  a 
'  will  to  deceive '  prefer  to  give  incorrect  names  so  often,  if  it 
can  give  the  true  ones  to  which  the  incorrect  ones  so  frequently 
approximate  as  to  suggest  that  they  are  meant?  True  names 
impress  the  sitters  vastly  more.  Why  should  it  so  multiply 
false  'passwords'  ('  Zeivorn,'  for  example,  above  [Pr.XXIII,], 
p.  86)  and  stick  to  them  ?  It  looks  to  me  more  like  aiming  at 
something  definite,  and  failing  of  the  goal. . . .  That  a  '  will  to 
personate '  is  a  factor  in  the  Piper  phenomenon,  I  fully  believe, 
and  I  believe  with  unshakeable  firmness  that  this  will  is  able  to 
draw  on  supernormal  sources  of  information.  It  can  '  tap,'  pos- 
sibly the  sitter's  memories,  possibly  those  of  distant  human  be- 
ings, possibly  some  cosmic  reservoir  in  which  the  memories  of 
earth  are  stored,  whether  in  the  shape  of  '  spirits '  or  not " 


736      Piper-Hodgson  Control  in  America    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

But  whose  will  ?  and  what  "  reservoir  "  ?  Isn't  this  a  pretty 
good  formula  for  a  soul  communicating? 

The  sting  of  this  bee  is  in  the  right  place :  telepathy  from 
sitter,  teloteropathy  from  remote  incarnate  intelligences,  a 
dramatic  secondary  self,  each  fits  some  cases ;  but  the  Cosmic 
Eeservoir  seems  to  fit  all. 

James  continues  (Pr.  XXIII,  118) : 

" Primd  facie,  and  as  a  matter  of  '  dramatic '  prob- 
ability, other  intelligences  than  our  own  appear  on  an  enor- 
mous scale  in  the  historic  mass  of  material  which  Myers 
first  brought  together  under  the  title  of  Automatisms.  The  re- 
fusal of  modern  '  enlightenment '  to  treat  '  possession '  as  a 
hypothesis  to  be  spoken  of  as  even  possible,  in  spite  of  the  mas- 
sive human  tradition  based  on  concrete  experience  in  its  favor, 
has  always  seemed  to  me  a  curious  example  of  the  power  of 
fashion  in  things  scientific 

"  The  plot  of  possibilities  thus  thickens ;  and  it  thickens  still 
more  when  we  ask  how  a  will  which  is  dormant  or  relatively 
dormant  during  the  intervals  may  become  consciously  reani- 
mated as  a  spirit-personality  by  the  occurrence  of  the  medium's 
trance." 

Why  dormant  ?     Can  it  not  be  simply   "  otherwise  en- 


CHAPTEE  XLV 
THE  HODGSON  CONTROL  IN  ENGLAND 

/.  The  Holland-Hodgson 
Miss  JOHNSON  says  (Pr.  XXI,  303f.) : 

"  In  February,  1905 . . .  Mrs.  Holland  found  that  the  auto- 
matic writing  was  beginning  to  make  her  feel  faint  or  sleepy. 

The  condition  was  obviated  at  the  time It  now  began  to 

recur.  [This  sort  of  thing  is  noted  in  several  places  as  preced- 
ing the  advent  of  a  new,  and  especially  a  strong  control.  H.H.] 
On  Feb.  17th,  1906,  she  wrote  to  me : 

" '  The  inclosed  writing  [that  of  Feb.  9th  quoted  below]  dates 
from  several  days  ago.  I  was  able  to  try  it  early  in  the  evening 
for  once,  and  I  was  anxious  to  see  if  the  almost  stupor  which 
writing  has  been  causing  lately  was  due  to  late  hours  and  writing 
in  bed.  I  found  that  even  when  I  was  not  tired  (and  sat  in  a 
stiff  chair  well  away  from  a  table,  with  nothing  to  support  arms 
or  head),  a  few  moments  of  writing  made  me  feel  at  once  very 
sleepy  and  exceedingly  loquacious.  I  fancy  that  under  favorable 
conditions  my  automatic  writing  would  change  (for  a  time  at 
any  rate)  into  trance  or  semi-trance  conditions  with  spoken 
words  instead  of  written  ones. 

" '  Twice  or  thrice  lately,  just  before  falling  asleep  at  night,  I 
have  heard  fragments  of  talk  which  I  know  are  not  actual  con- 
versation, and  as  I  am  in  my  usual  excellent  health,  perfectly 
free  from  excitement  or  brain  fag  of  any  kind,  I  can  only  ascribe 
them  [and  she  may  well  have  included  the  tendency  to  trance 
with  them.  H.H.]  to  a  possible  new  attempt  at  communication.' 

"  It  will  be  observed  that  this  condition  seems  to  coincide  with 
the  first  definite  attempt  at  a  communication  from  a  Hodgson 
control," 

— i.e.,  through  Mrs.  Holland.  The  Piper  communications 
began  some  six  weeks  earlier.  Mrs.  Holland  learned 
of  Hodgson's  death  on  January  2,  1906.  Her  script  on  Fri- 
day, February  9,  1906,  9  p.  M.,  is  as  follows  (Pr.  XXI,  304)  : 

737 


738       The  Hodgson  Control  in  England    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 


" Sjdibse  Ipehtp  o — Only  one  letter  further  on — 

18  8 

9  15 

3  4 
8  7 
1  19 

18  15 

4  14 

"  They  are  not  haphazard  figures  read  them  as  letters — . . . 

"  K.  57.  [a  Christian  name] —    Gray  paper — 

"  The  ( ?)  straggler  [  ?straggles]  returns — a  printed  address  on 
the  sheet  of  paper — Three  small  lines  of  writing — a  wide  margin 
left —  I  cannot  make  it  clear  to  you — 

"  Concentrate  hard. 


3  initials. 


"  Nothing  else  upon  the  sheet — 

"  [NOTE. — From  '  a  printed  address '  to  this  point  is  no  doubt 
an  attempt  to  describe  a  supposed  letter,  the  three  lines  being  in 
the  original  long  and  wavy,  obviously  meant  to  represent  three 
lines  of  writing  in  the  letter.  The  description,  however,  is  very 
vague,  and  has  not  been  identified.] 

"It's  a  wide  prospect  from  the  windows — 

"  A  gold  watch  chain  with  a  horse-shoe  shaped  cigar  cutter 
attached  to  it —  An  old  seal  not  his  own  initials —  A  white 
handled  knife  inkstained — 

"  Nitrate  of  amyl — probably  too  late  even  if  it  had  been 
thought  of — 

"  A  corpse  needs  no  shoes." 

Miss  Johnson  continues  (Pr.  XXI,  304-5)  : 

"  On  Feb.  21st,  1906,  when,  as  already  stated,  I  saw  Mrs.  Hol- 
land, we  discussed  this  script.  I  found  that  in  spite  of  the 
rather  obvious  hints  given  in  it, — '  Only  one  letter  further  on y 
and  '  Not  haphazard  figures  read  them  as  letters,' — Mrs.  Holland 
had  not  deciphered  the  initial  conundrums.  The  first  letters  are 
formed  from  the  name  '  Richard  Hodgson '  by  substituting  for 
each  letter  of  the  name  the  letter  following  it  in  the  alphabet; 
the  numbers  represent  the  same  name  by  substituting  for  each 
letter  the  number  of  its  place  in  the  alphabet. 

"  I  asked  Mrs.  Holland  if  she  had  ever  played  at  conundrums 
of  this  kind.  She  told  me  that  as  a  child  in  the  nursery  she  had 
played  at  a  '  secret  language '  made  by  using  either  the  letter 
before  or  the  letter  after  the  real  one.  But  she  had  never  prac- 
tised or  thought  of  using  numbers  in  this  way.  She  noted  after- 
wards : '  When  my  hand  wrote  them  I  thought  they  were  an  addi- 


Ch.  XLV]  The  Holland-Hodgson  739 

tion  sum  and  hoped  [my  subliminal]  would  add  it  very  correctly 
and  quickly.  [My  supraliminal]  is  very  poor  at  figures.'  As  to 
the  rest  of  the  script :  Dr.  Hodgson  died  suddenly  of  heart-disease 
while  playing  a  game  of  handball  at  the  Boat  Club  in  Boston, 
on  December  20th,  1905.  There  was  no  preliminary  illness,  as 
suggested  in  the  script. . . .  Mrs.  Holland  . . .  asked  me  if  he  had 
died  of  heart-disease,  as  she  said  she  knew  nitrate  of  amyl  was 
given  for  heart  failure,  and  she  suggested  this  as  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  words  '  Nitrate  of  amyl — probably  too  late  even  if  it 
had  been  thought  of.' " 

The  remaining  script  of  this  period,  Miss  Johnson  gives  as 
follows : 

Feb.  28,  1906.     (Pr.XXI,305.) 

"  Dickon  of  Norfolk  [This  ...  is  obviously  meant  for  a  sort  of 
pun  on  the  name  Richard  Hodgson. — J] — is  that  far  enough 
away  from  the  real  name?  I'll  describe  R.  H.  [initials  written 
in  monogram], 

"  A  short  man — but  held  himself  well — broad  shoulders — thick 
gray  white  hair — thick  gray  brows — very  straight —  A  florid 
face — reddish  brown —  (though  it  was  pale  enough  at  the  end). 
Strong  chin — mobile  mouth. 

"  The  young  wife  died  so  long  ago — that  perhaps  some  people 
forget  her.  [Here  follows  the  same  Christian  name  as  that 
written  on  Feb.  9th.]  " 

(March  7th,  1906.) 

"  Brittleworth — Brickeldale.  Britleton — No — not  him  and  not 
James — Brit — Brittle  Brick  Brickleton —  Hugo — H.M. — Minster 
Berg.  Hugo. 

"  Was  he  not  aware  ?  R. 

"  Why  are  they  so  brutally  dense.  H. 

"  I  always  had  a  quick  temper." 

(May  16th,  1906.) 

"  When  the  deep  red  blood  of  the  maple  leaf 
Burns  on  the  bough  again. 

"  Spring  on  a  Boston  hillside.  One  clump  of  maples  stands 
alone —  they  are  outlined  against  the  sunset  and  the  sunset  is  no 
redder  than  they.  R.  H." 

Miss  Johnson  gives  the  following  elucidations  (Pr.  XXI, 
306-10)  : 

"  Mr.  Piddington  was  in  Boston,  U.  S.  A.,  during  April  and 
May,  1906,  and  I  sent  him  a  copy  of  the  above  pieces  of  script 
(except  that  of  May  16th) On  May  25th,  1906,  he  wrote: 

" ' To  represent  R.  H.  as  communicating  his  name  to 

a  sensitive  by  means  of  numbers  representing  letters,  and 
especially  "  s  j  d  i  b  s  e ,"  etc.,  is  an  extremely  characteristic 
touch 


740       The  Hodgson  Control  in  England    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IY 

" '  I  reached  R.  H.'s  old  rooms. ...  I  noticed  a  dilapidated  note- 
book  On  the  front  cover  K.  H.  had  written  "  The  Eternal 

Life."  Inside  are  two  loose  sheets  on  which  R.  H.  had  made 
rough  notes  for  an  article  which  he  had  apparently  intended  to 
write  in  answer  to  Prof.  Miinsterberg's  book,  The  Eternal  Life. 
It  is  known  that  R.  H.  was  much  incensed  by  Miinsterberg's 
book 

" '  It  is  at  least  a  curious  coincidence  that  within  1^4  hours 
of  receiving  and  reading  Miss  Johnson's  copy  of  Mrs.  [Hol- 
land's] script  I  should  fortuitously  come  across  a  memorandum 
made  by  Hodgson  which  shows  that  he  used  K.  followed  by  a 
numeral  for  some  purpose  or  other 

"  *  [Script  of  Feb.  28th,  1906.]  Description  not  either  very 
good  or  very  bad  if  applied  to  R.  H.  [Good  enough,  I  think. 
H.H.] 

" '  [Script  of  March  7th,  1906.]  In  view  of  what  has  been  said 
above  about  Prof.  Hugo  Miinsterberg,  the  obvious  reference  to 
him  here  is  quite  appropriate.  "  Why  are  they  so  brutally  dense? 
H.  I  always  had  a  quick  temper."  These  phrases  are  very  like 
the  "R.  H.  control"  sayings  through  Mrs.  Piper. 

"  '  J.  G.  PIDDINGTON.' 

"I  sent  a  copy  of  these  passages  in  the  script  later  to  Pro- 
fessor James's  son,  Mr.  Henry  James,  Junr.,  who  had  been  ap- 
pointed one  of  Dr.  Hodgson's  executors,  and  he  wrote  to  me : 

"  '  July  29th,  1906. 

"  '  The  lines  ["  a  printed  address  on  the  sheet  of  paper,  etc." — 
script  of  Feb.  9th,  1906]  suggest  this  to  me, — that  Hodgson  ia 
struggling  to  procure  the  return  of  letters  or  papers  which  he 
tries  to  describe.  Mr.  Piddington  will  tell  you  that  the  Piper 
control  has  abounded  with  this  sort  of  request 

" '  I  know  of  no  place  in  Boston  frequented  by  Hodgson  where 
there  was  a  wide  prospect  from  the  windows,  unless  possibly  the 
Union  Boat  Club,  where  he  died.  Its  windows  overlook  the  Back 
Bay  to  some  hills  beyond 

"  '  He  wore  a  gold  watch-chain  on  which  I  find  that  there  is  a 
gold  cigar-cutter  of  the  ordinary  type — not  at  all  horse-shoe 
shaped.  I  found  an  old  seal,  the  stone  of  which  was  broken,  and 
which  had  a  female  figure  cut  on  it.  It  was  not  worn  at  the 
time  of  his  death 

" '  [In  regard  to  the  script  of  May  16th,  1906]  the  foliage  of 
one  of  our  American  maples  turns  a  very  brilliant  red  in  the 
autumn,  and  its  minute  flowers  are  a  most  brilliant  red  in  the 
spring.  The  lines  might  be  a  quotation  from  some  American 
poem,  or  something  of  Hodgson's  own 

" '  I  think  that  the  phrases  at  the  end  of  March  7th  are  rather 
like  Hodgson,  as  Mr.  Piddington  says;  but  if  one  can  refine  on 
what  is  already  so  refined,  they  are  more  like  Mrs.  Piper's  Hodg- 
son control.' 

"  The  description  of  Dr.  Hodgson's  personal  appearance  (given 


Ch.  XLV]        Controls  Vary  with  Mediums  741 

on  Feb.  28th)  seems  to  me  characteristic ;  but  as  his  portrait  hag 
been  published  more  than  once  in  illustrated  magazines,  it  can- 
not be  evidential.  Mrs.  Holland  believes,  however,  that  she  has 
never  seen  a  portrait  of  him,  and  that  she  had  never  heard  of 
him  till  she  read  Human  Personality. 

"  On  March  7th,  the  various  attempts  made  at  the  name  Hugo 
Miinsterberg  are  comparable  with  the  feeling  after  the  name 
Eusapia  Palladino  referred  to  above  (Pr.  XXI,274)  ;  but  whereas 
in  that  case  there  is  clearly  an  effort  of  memory  to  recall  the 
name,  in  this  the  partial  emergence  is  possibly  a  telepathic  effort; 
for  Mrs.  Holland,  as  she  told  me  later,  had  never  heard  of  Prof. 
Miinsterberg 

"  [J.]  There  is  a  certain  interest  in  the  resemblance  between 
the  kinds  of  remarks  made  by  the  Hodgson  control  through  Mrs. 
Piper  and  through  Mrs.  Holland.  Mrs.  Piper  was  of  course  well 
acquainted  with  Dr.  Hodgson  in  life,  and  it  was  therefore  natu- 
ral that  in  her  trance  condition  some  of  his  characteristics  should 
come  out  vividly  and  indeed  in  a  somewhat  accentuated  form. 
But  no  report  of  the  sittings  with  her  since  his  death  had  been 
published,  and  there  was,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  no  normal  channel 
through  which  her  trance  conception  of  him  could  have  filtered 
through  to  Mrs.  Holland. 

"  A  similar  resemblance  was  found  . . .  between  the  Gurney 
controls  of  Mrs.  Forbes  and  of  Mrs.  Holland.  Here  again  Mr. 
Gurney  in  his  life-time  was  known  to  Mrs.  Forbes  but  unknown 
to  Mrs.  Holland.  She  knew  both  Mr.  Gurney  and  Dr.  Hodgson 
by  name  through  Human  Personality,  but  there  is  nothing  in 
that  book  to  suggest  in  either  case  the  particular  characteristics 
exhibited  by  these  controls  in  her  script. 

"  The  Christian  name  following  '  K.  57 '  in  the  script  of 
Feb.  9th,  1906,  and  coming  at  the  end  of  the  extract  from  the 
script  of  Feb.  28th,  is  that  of  a  lady  referred  to  in  Dr.  Hodgson's 
report  on  his  sittings  with  Mrs.  Piper  in  Proceedings,  Vol.  VIII. 
Of  this  lady  '  Phinuit '  remarked,  '  The  second  part  of  her  first 

name  is  sie.'  Dr.  Hodgson  afterwards  told  him  the  full 

name,  but  this  was  not  published,  the  lady  being  spoken  of  in 
the  rest  of  the  report  as  '  Q.'  It  was  the  full  Christian  name 
which  was  given  by  Mrs.  Holland,  who — it  is  to  be  remembered 
— had  not  seen  the  Proceedings  at  all.  On  Feb.  28th  the  script 
said, '  The  young  wife  died  so  long  ago  that  perhaps  some  people 
forget  her.'  '  Q.'  died  in  1879,  but  she  was,  I  believe,  never 
married.  The  name  had  also  occurred  in  Mrs.  Holland's  script 
on  Dec.  1st,  1905  (i.e.,  19  days  before  Dr.  Hodgson's  death) ." 

This  is  the  one  name  Hodgson  would  have  been  most  apt 
to  express.  Even  Podmore  says  (New.  Spir.,  217)  :  "It  seems 
impossible  that  Mrs.  Holland  should  have  known  of  it  by 
normal  means." 


742       The  Hodgson  Control  in  England    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IY 

Is  all  this  a  telepathic  tapping  of  Mrs.  Piper's  mind,  or 
the  mind  of  some  other  surviving  friend  of  Hodgson,  or  the 
minds  of  several;  or  Hodgson's  surviving  mind  trying  to 
express  itself,  or  all  of  them  together — the  Cosmic  Mind  ? 

With  great  reluctance  I  leave  this,  to  me  at  least,  exceed- 
ingly interesting  account  of  Mrs.  Holland's  experiences.  We 
shall  see  a  little  more  of  them  under  our  next  topic  of  Cross- 
Correspondences,  but  I  strongly  recommend  the  interested 
reader  to  make  farther  acquaintance  with  them  through  Pr. 
Part  LV  (Vol.  XXI). 

II.  The  Piper-Hodgson  in  England 

We  now  come  to  the  alleged  communications  of  Hodgson 
through  Mrs.  Piper  in  England.  A  note  regarding  them  by 
Mrs.  Henry  Sidgwick  and  Mr.  Piddington  is  printed  in  Pr. 
XXIII,  and  in  the  same  volume  he  appears  in  a  long  report 
regarding  several  controls,  from  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  from  which 
I  make  a  few  extracts. 

At  the  outset,  I  want  to  repeat  in  connection  with  these 
sittings  a  fact  mentioned  by  Sir  Oliver  (p.  431),  where 
the  sittings  were  partly  anticipated  for  reasons  there  given. 
It  is  that  communicators  (?)  do  better  when  the  medium 
is  among  their  most  recent  and  most  familiar  surroundings. 
For  many  years  before  his  death,  Hodgson  was  practically  an 
American,  and  it  was  not  with  surprise  that  I  found  Mrs. 
Sidgwick  and  Mr.  Piddington  saying  (Pr.  XXIII,  122f.)  : 

"  The  Hodgson  control  appeared  frequently  at  Mrs.  Piper's 
English  sittings,  but  was  seldom  the  most  prominent  control. 
In  explanation  of  this  he  stated  that  he  was  engaged  in  helping 
Myers  and  others  to  communicate,  and  thought  it  better  to  keep 
himself  in  the  background.  On  the  one  hand  his  style  and  ex- 
pressions in  communicating  resembled  those  described  by  Profes- 
sor James,  and  were  dramatically  suitable  to  Hodgson. . . .  On  the 
other  hand,  the  attempts  made  by  Hodgson  to  recall  trivial  inci- 
dents were  not  convincing,  and  were,  in  fact,  often  wrong 

"  We  introduced  . . .  intimate  English  friends  of  Hodgson's  . . . 
nothing  that  could  be  regarded  as  adequate  evidence  of  recogni- 
tion was  said,  and  there  was  a  great  deal  of  what  looked  like 
guessing  and  fishing,  and  much  said  that  was  inappropriate.  A 
fourth  friend  of  Hodgson's  had  five  sittings  under  what  might  be 
supposed  to  be  very  favorable  circumstances — in  the  very  rooms 
in  which  Hodgson  had  dined  with  him  the  last  time  that  they 


Ch.  XLV]        Controls  Strongest  near  Home  743 

had  met  in  England.  Nevertheless  there  was  no  good  evidence 
that  there  were  any  associations  for  Hodgson  either  with  the 
friend  or  with  the  room " 

Contrast  this  with  the  control's  relations  to  his  American 
friends.  All  this  seems  to  me  to  make  strongly  for  the 
spiritistic  hypothesis.  Hodgson's  English  memories  were  all 
behind  memories  in  America  which  were  much  more  recent, 
vivid,  intimate,  emotional,  and  even  affectionate. 

And  yet  the  following  manifestation  of  the  Hodgson  con- 
trol from  Sir  Oliver  Lodge's  report  (which  we  will  go  farther 
into  later),  although  it  indirectly  traverses  the  foregoing 
statements,  is  not  half  bad  in  itself.  In  the  eighth  sitting, 
says  Sir  Oliver  (Pr.  XXIII,  243) : 

"  the  following  came  from  Hodgson. 

" '  I  am  Hodgson,  but  I  cannot  take  Rector's  place  to-day. 
However  I  will  make  a  poor  attempt  to  speak  through  him.' 
O.  J.  L. :  '  Very  glad  to  see  you.'  R.  H.:  '  Here's  ditto.'  " 

In  my  perverted  judgment,  these  two  words  are  among 
the  most  evidential  things  on  record — so  far  as  I  know  the 
record,  but  the  medium  may  have  heard  Hodgson  use  them 
in  life,  and  so  from  the  scientific  point  of  view  they  are  not 
evidential  at  all.  But  I  am  not  exclusively  scientific.  Yet 
they  are  evidential  from  my  point  of  view  only  as  parts  of 
the  whole  mass  of  dramatic  presentation,  which  to  me  is  the 
one  evidential  feature  of  the  whole  business.  Then  the  Hodg- 
son control  says: 

"'Do  I  understand  that  Mrs.  Piper  is  in  England?'" 

He  was  communicating  through  her  at  the  time!  What 
are  the  implications  ?  That  his  not  knowing  her  was  a  put-up 
job,  or  that  the  occasional  alleged  difficulties  in  recognizing 
and  communicating  are  genuine? 

At  the  thirteenth  sitting,  on  December  3,  1906,  the  follow- 
ing occurred  (Pr.  XXIII,  245f.) : 

"R.  H.:  'Hello,  Hello,  Lodge.  How  are  you  on  that  side?' 
O.  J.  L. :  '  Hullo,  Hodgson,  I  want  to  ask  you  something.' 
R.  H. :  '  Fire  away  at  me,  I  am  in  the  witness  box.'  O.  J.  L. : 
'  Well,  you  told  me  to  gire  a  message  to  "  Billie  Newbold." ' 
R.  H. :  '  Right.'  O.  J.  L. : '  About  the  title  of  a  Hindustani  poem, 
but  you  did  not  tell  me  anything  in  Hindustani.  That  is,  I  ex- 


744       The  Hodgson  Control  in  England    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

pect,  what  he  wanted.'    R.  H. :  '  No,  I  beg  your  pardon ;  he  asked 
me  to  translate  into  English  the  name  of  a  poem  I  wrote,  now 

in  his  possession '     O.  J.  L. :  '  Very  well ;  and  is  that  all  I 

am  to  say  to  him?'  R.  H. :  'Yes,  about  that.  But  you  will 
please  tell  him  that  he  is  not  to  feel  disturbed  about  that  Me- 
dium's message :  it  is  all  rot.  He  will  understand  about  it ;  i.e., 
his  going  to  the  bottom  with  his  wife;  i.e.,  going  to  the  bottom 
of  the  sea.  U.D.  [usual  condensation,  for  U(nderstan)D,  either 
a  question  or  an  affirmation.  H.H.]  . . .  Myers  has  had  very  little 
opportunity  or  encouragement  to  prove  his  identity.'  O.  J.  L.: 
'  Yes,  that  is  fairly  true  so  far.'  R.  H. :  '  And  now  if  the  oppor- 
tunity can  be  given  him,  no  one  on  our  side  is  more  desirous  of 
proving  his  identity  than  Myers.  U.D.'  O.  J.  L. :  '  Yes,  I  quite 
understand. . . .'  R.  H. : '  We  cannot  remain  here ;  our  utterances 
are  fragmentary  but  they  are  earnest  and  sincere.  This  must  be 
the  case  however  until  the  veil  is  lifted,  with  all  made  clear  to 
you.  Your  mind  cannot  help  us.  If  you  think  of  a  thing  seri- 
ously it  cannot  convey  anything  to  us.  [Contradicts  Foster,  and 
p.  279.  H.H.]  We  go,  and  may  God  be  with  and  watch  over  you 
always.' 
"'4-  Farewell  R.'" 

This  sign  of  the  cross  is  part  of  the  ceremonies  instituted 
by  the  Imperator  company  after  they  took  possession  of  Mrs. 
Piper. 

For  the  sake  of  comparing  Sir  Oliver  Lodge's  experience 
with  the  Hodgson  control,  with  that  of  Mrs.  Sidgwick  and 
Mr.  Piddington,  I  have  quoted  from  advanced  portions  of 
Sir  Oliver's  report.  I  will  now  go  to  the  beginning. 

After  reading  a  large  mass  of  records  of  sittings,  and  com- 
ments on  them,  I  made  a  memorandum  (which  has  since  led 
to  repetitions  that  I  fear  have  bored  you)  that  the  experi- 
menters and  commentators,  in  their  eagerness  for  what  they 
were  pleased  to  term  "  evidential "  matter,  were  not  making 
enough  of  the  powerful  argument  for  spiritism  presented  by 
the  dramatic  character  of  the  manifestations — the  natural- 
ness and  distinct  individuality  of  the  "controls."  Although 
this  has  been  mentioned  by  virtually  all  the  commentators, 
it  was  not  made  prominent  before  Hodgson  in  Pr.  XIII,  and 
James  in  Pr.  XXIII,  and  was  not  brought  to  the  forefront 
in  the  Society's  Proceedings  before  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  in  the 
paper  we  are  now  considering.  He  first  of  anybody  rises  to 
the  full  measure  of  the  occasion.  At  the  outset  he  says  (Pr. 
XXIII,  128)  : 


Ch.  XLV]    Limits  to  Reasonable  Preconception  745 

"  My  object  in  drawing  up  the  following  Report  is  to  give  a 
general  idea  of  the  dramatic  aspect  of  the  Piper  phenomena,  and 
of  the  utterances  of  some  of  the  ostensible  controls.  For  thia 
purpose  therefore  I  do  not  limit  myself  to  the  consideration  of 
evidential  matter,  but  regard  the  non-evidential  and  the  tririal 
as  sometimes  equally  instructive.  I  do  not  propose  to  argue  as 
to  the  nature  of  these  same  controls,  although  that  constitutes 
the  main  problem  before  us.  The  time  hardly  appears  ripe  for 
useful  discussion  of  that  kind,  and  I  feel  myself  in  agreement 
with  Professor  William  James  when  he  says  " 

— and  then  he  quotes  the  passage  from  James  quoted  by  me  on 
p.  529,  1.  7  from  bottom:  "The  facts  are  evidently,"  etc. 
(Cf.  ante,  pp.  709-10.) 
Sir  Oliver  farther  says  most  wisely  (Pr.  XXIII,  129) : 

"  The  contention  that  a  hostile  or  squeamish  attitude  should 
be  taken  by  every  unprejudiced  investigator  is  quite  absurd;  it 
would  only  be  appropriate  to  one  who  so  despises  and  sneers  at 
the  whole  subject  as  to  refuse  an  opportunity  of  learning  any- 
thing about  it.  Doubtless  there  are  many  such  people  in  exist- 
ence, and  with  them  I  have  no  quarrel ;  but  they  are  not  asked 
to  read  or  review  these  and  other  such  reports." 

As  often  intimated  already,  that  attitude  at  a  sitting  tends 
to  upset  the  medium  and  spoil  the  game — a  circumstance 
legitimately  open  to  suspicion,  but  thought  by  many  to  be 
now  demonstrated  beyond  it. 

Sir  Oliver  says  that  in  the  early  days  of  his  acquaintance 
with  Mrs.  Piper  (Pr.  XXIII,  131) : 

"  The  dramatic  activity  of  the  hand  was  very  remarkable :  it 
was  full  of  intelligence,  and  could  be  described  as  more  like  an 
intelligent  person  than  a  hand.  It  sometimes  turned  itself  to 
the  sitter,  when  it  wanted  to  be  spoken  to  by  him;  but  for  the 
most  part,  when  not  writing,  it  turned  itself  away  from  the  sitter, 
as  if  receiving  communications  from  outside,  which  it  then  pro- 
ceeded to  write  down ;  going  back  to  space — i.e.,  directing  itself 
to  a  part  of  the  room  where  nobody  [incarnate.  H.H.]  was — for 
further  information  and  supplementary  intelligence,  as  necessity 
arose 

"  In  the  old  days  the  control  had  styled  itself  '  Phinuit ' ;  now 
Phinuit  never  appears,  and  the  control  calls  itself  Rector." 

Sir  Oliver  (Pr.  XXIII,  134)  corroborates  Hodgson's  re- 
marks at  the  end  of  his  last  report  about  the  beneficial  effect 
on  Mrs.  Piper  and  her  phenomena  produced  by  the  regula- 
tions imposed  by  the  Imperator  regime. 


746       The  Hodgson  Control  in  England    [Bk.  II,  Ft  IV, 

"  If  anything  went  wrong  with  the  breathing,  or  if  there  was 
insufficient  air  in  the  room,  or  if  the  cushions  slipped  so  as  to 
make  the  attitude  uncomfortable,  the  hand  wrote  '  something 
wrong  with  the  machine,'  or  '  attend  to  the  light/  or  something 
of  that  sort 

"  The  following  illustrates  the  care  taken  of  the  physical  con- 
ditions and  the  way  they  are  spoken  of.  It  is  an  extract  from  a 
sitting  held  by  Mr.  Dorr  at  Boston  in  1906. 

"  (Hector  interrupting  a  '  Hodgson  '  communication)  '  Friend, 
you  will  have  to  change  the  conditions  a  moment.'  [At  the  be- 
ginning of  the  sitting  only  one  of  the  two  windows  in  the  room 
was  open  a  very  little  way.  A  few  moments  previous  to  this 
time  H.  J.  Jr.  noticing  that  the  room  was  a  little  close  had 
opened  the  other  window,  and  G.  B.  D.  had  nearly  closed  it 
again.]  G.  B.  D. :  '  What  is  wrong  with  the  conditions  ?  Do 
you  want  more  air  or  less  ? '  R. :  *  Well,  there  will  have  to  be  a 
change  in  the  surroundings,  there  will  have  to  be  more  strength, 
what  is  it,  air,  yes,  air.  And  a  good  deal  more  just  now.  Hodg- 
son takes  a  good  deal  of  strength  when  he  comes,  but  he  is  all 
right,  he  understands  the  methods  of  operation  very  well.  (The 
window  was  now  opened  wide.)  That  is  better.  Now  the  light 
begins  to  get  clear.  All  right,  friend.' " 

Sir  Oliver  also  says  (Pr.  XXIII,  138-9) : 

"  In  the  old  days,  undoubtedly,  the  appearance  was  sometimes 
as  if  the  actual  control  was  changed — after  the  fashion  of  a 
multiple  personality;  whereas  now  I  think  it  is  nearly  always 
Rector  that  writes,  recording  the  messages  given  to  him  as 
nearly  as  he  can,  and  usually  reporting  the  first  person,  as 
Phinuit  often  did.  I  do  not  attempt  to  discriminate  between 
what  is  given  in  this  way  and  what  is  given  directly,  because  it 
is  practically  impossible  to  do  so  with  any  certainty. ...  If  a 
special  agency  gets  control  and  writes  for  a  few  minutes,  it  does 
not  seem  able  to  sustain  the  position  long,  but  soon  abandons  it 
to  the  more  accomplished  and  experienced  personality,  Rector. 
In  the  recent  series  there  appeared  very  little  evidence  of  direct 
control  other  than  Rector.  [Cf.  G.  P.'s  assertion  that  they  need 
a  medium  on  that  side  as  we  do  on  this.  H.H.] 

"  We  shall  speak  however  of  the  '  Gurney  control,'  the  '  Hodg- 
son control,'  etc.,  without  implying  that  these  agents — even  as- 
suming their  existence  and  activity — are  ever  really  in  physical 
possession  of  the  organism ;  and,  even  when  they  are  controlling 
as  directly  as  possible,  they  may  perhaps  always  be  operating 
telepathically  on  it  rather  than  telergically — operating,  that  is 
to  say,  through  some  stratum  of  the  mind,  rather  than  directly 
on  any  part  of  the  physical  organism." 

Sir  Oliver  gives  (Pr.  XXIII,  160-1)  "an  extract  from  a 


Ch.  XLV]    R.  H.  Controls  only  through  Rector  747 

sitting  with  Mr.  Dorr,  who  is  speaking  to  the  Hodgson  con- 
trol." 

"  G.  B.  D. :  '  I  wanted  to  ask  whether  you  ever  controlled  the 
organism  of  the  light  yourself,  or  whether  it  is  wholly  done  by 
Rector.'  R.  H. :  '  It  is  wholly  done  by  Rector  and  it  will  con- 
tinue to  be.  I  shall  take  no  part  in  that.'  G.  B.  D. :  '  Then/  it  is 
he  who  is  speaking  ? '  R.  H. :  '  It  is  Rector  who  is  speaking  and 
he  speaks  for  me.  I  have  no  desire  to  take  Rector's  place.  I 
trust  him  implicitly  and  absolutely.'  G.  B.  D. :  '  And  he  con- 
stantly reports  for  everyone?'  R.  H. :  'Everyone.  [He  seems 
then  to  report  as  from  dictation  in  the  first  person.  H.H.]  There 
is  no  question  about  that.  In  the  first  place  he  is  more  compe- 
tent to  do  it,  he  understands  the  conditions  better  than  any  in- 
dividual spirit;  he  is  fully  capable  and  is  under  the  constant 
direction  of  Imperator.  When  I  finished  with  the  conditions  in 
the  earthly  life  I  finished  with  my  control  over  the  light.'  " 

That  is:  he  finished  with  his  influence  with  Mrs.  Piper. 
Sir  Oliver  remarks: 

"  So  it  would  appear  that  the  changes  of  control  claim  to  be 
now  usually  dramatic  rather  than  real." 

I  am  not  professing  to  guide  you  through  these  intricacies 
to  any  definite  and  necessary  conclusions,  but  merely  to  give 
you  as  good  an  outline  of  the  intricacies  as  I  can,  with  candid 
statements,  for  what  they  may  be  worth,  of  such  suggestions — 
often  contradictory — as  the  evidence  brings  to  me.  One  such 
statement  is  that  the  intelligent  and  initiative  action  of  Rec- 
tor, as  intermediary  and  amanuensis,  seems  absolutely  at  vari- 
ance with  my  impression  that  he  and  his  companions  are  mere 
figments  of  the  dreams  of  Stainton  Moses  and  Mrs.  Piper, 
eked  out  perhaps  with  impressions  from  sitters.  This  harks 
back  to  the  half-crazy  question  I  have  already  raised :  whether 
a  genius  can  generate  a  working  psychic  personality.  There 
may  be  something  in  it.  While  we  wait  to  see,  our  only  course 
seems  to  be  to  leave  this  part  of  the  puzzle  in  suspense,  and 
continue  trying  to  correlate  such  other  parts  as  seem  to  admit 
of  correlation.  We  can  hardly  hope  soon  to  reach  any  sys- 
tematic grouping  that  will  include  all  the  pieces.  We  will  be 
fortunate  when  we  reach  a  grouping  so  comprehensive  as  to 
encourage  the  expectation  that  farther  knowledge  will  soon 
enable  us  to  fit  in  the  remaining  pieces,  until  we  have  a  con- 
gruous and  significant  whole. 


748       The  Hodgson  Control  in  England    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

From  these  accounts  of  the  Hodgson  control  we  pass,  in 
defiance  of  chronology,  to  a  series  of  sittings  of  which  the 
earlier  occurred  just  before  his  death,  and  were  conducted 
by  him ;  and  similar  disregard  of  chronology  will  be  necessary 
in  presenting  other  series.  It  will  be  a  less  evil,  however, 
than  would  have  been  the  splitting  of  each  of  these  series, 
and  the  fitting  of  their  fragments  into  a  jumble  whose  only 
unity  would  have  been  sequence  in  time. 


CHAPTER  XLVI 
THE  ISAAC  THOMPSON  SERIES  IN  1906 

WE  now  come  again  to  the  Thompson  family,  whom  we 
met  in  Chapter  XXX  as  having  sittings  in  1889.  This  family 
has  no  connection  whatever  with  Mrs.  Thompson  the  medium. 
Sir  Oliver  Lodge  says  (Pr.  XXIII,  163)  : 

"  In  1906,  when  the  recent  series  of  sittings  was  held,  one  of 
the  three  daughters,  who  in  1889  were  children,  was  married,  and 
the  son  engaged ; . . .  the  grandmother,  alive  in  1889,  was  now 
dead ;  and  I  regret  to  say  that  Isaac  Thompson  himself  had  sud- 
denly died  of  an  apoplectic  seizure  in  his  own  house  on  the 
6th  November,  1903. 

"  The  interest  of  the  family  at  the  present  time  therefore  lay 
in  receiving  communications  if  possible  from  him." 

Some  two  years  after  his  death,  his  son  Edwin,  happening 
to  be  in  America,  had  a  sitting  on  December  11,  1905,  with 
Mrs.  Piper,  in  which  the  father  ostensibly  appeared,  and,  Sir 
Oliver  says,  "  seemed  to  wonder  how  his  son  had  '  managed 
to  find  him*  [in  America].  It  was,  however,  a  bad 
sitting  and  evidentially  blank."  It  does  not  seem  so  to  my 
lay  mind,  in  view  of  the  first  sentence  quoted.  Mr.  Edwin 
Thompson's  lay  mind  seems  to  have  been  affected  in  the  same 
way:  for  Sir  Oliver  continues  (Pr.  XXIII,  163-4) : 

"  Undoubtedly  there  ought  to  have  been  another  sitting  with- 
out delay,  to  clear  up  this  unsatisfactory  interview . . .  though  I 
believe  that  Mr.  E.  Thompson  is  on  the  whole  more  satisfied 
with  it  than  these  remarks  of  mine  would  suggest;  but  un- 
fortunately he  had  to  return  to  England  immediately,  and  at  the 
next  sitting  he  was  not  present.  From  some  points  of  view — 
however  unfortunate  it  undoubtedly  was — this  absence  of  any 
connecting  link  at  ensuing  sittings  held  by  R.  Hodgson  or  others 
in  America  may  be  held  to  strengthen  the  evidence,  provided 
anything  further  was  obtained — as  it  was;  since  now  the  facts 
could  hardly  be  supposed  to  be  obtained  from  the  sitter;  Amer- 
ican strangers  naturally  knowing  nothing  about  the  family,  and 
Dr.  Hodgson  being  a  complete  stranger  to  them  all,  except  E.  T., 
whose  slight  acquaintance  he  had  only  just  made." 

749 


750    The  Isaac  Thompson  Series  in  1906    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IY 

On  December  12th,  the  day  after  Edwin  Thompson's  sit- 
ting, a  sitter  who  did  not  know  him  received  through  Rector 
a  message  for  him  from  George  Pelham  regarding  E.  T.'s 
father.  The  next  day,  at  a  Hodgson  sitting  with  Mrs.  Piper 
in  America,  occurred  the  following  (Pr.  XXIII,  164f.)  : 

"  [Rector] :  '  Didst  thou  receive  the  message  from  George  ? ' 
R.  H. :  '  Yes,  last  night,  thank  you.'  [R.]  :  '  Have  you  the  in- 
fluences of  the  young  man's  [Edwin  Thompson's.  H.H.]  father? ' 
R.  H. :  ('  No.')  R. :  'It  seems  almost  an  injustice  to  us  not  to 
have  met  him  once  more,  as  it  would  be  a  great  help  to  the  com- 
municator himself  and  all  on  our  side.'  R.  H. : '  I  have  explained 
all  to  him,  and  he  will  send  me  some  articles  of  his  father  after 
he  returns  to  England.  He  had  no  more  time  here,  and  is  already 
on  his  way  back:  He  had  no  opportunity  before  leaving  home,  to 
know  what  he  ought  to  do.'  R. :  '  We  U.D.  and  since  the  spirit  is 
now  waiting  with  our  good  and  faithful  co-worker  George  we 
shall  after  preliminary  matters  are  cleared  up  listen  to  what  he 
hath  to  say.'  R.  H. :  'I  shall  be  glad.'  R. :  ' That  young  man 
[Edwin  Thompson.  H.H.]  hath  some  significant  light  himself.' 
(Scrawls  were  now  made,  ending  '  help  me.')  R.  H. :  '  Kindly 
tell  me  anything  you  wish.' 

"  [Isaac  Thompson  begins.  H.H.]  '  I  hold  this  bottle  in  my 

hand  for  identification Bottle ...  in  my  hand.'  R.  H. : 

'  Yes  ? '  T. :  '  I  had  much  to  do  with  them  when  in  your  world.' 
R.  H. :  '  Who  are  you  ? '  T. :  '  I  used  to  be  address  [sic]  Dr. 
I  got.'  [He  had  medical  ambitions,  and  was  partner  in  Thomp- 
son &  Capper  [drug  dealers.  H.H.J. — O.J.L.]  " 

Isn't  this  immensely  funny  and  immensely  pathetic  ?  Draw 
the  picture  (there  is  no  use  in  reading  these  things  without 
imagination) — the  old  man  "with  medical  ambitions," 
slightly  bent,  venerable  and  benign,  but  curious  and  mistrust- 
ful of  his  reception;  then  give  him  his  spectacles  and  his 
"  bottle  for  identification."  Nothing  "  evidential "  about  it  ? 
As  you  please.  As  I  please,  until  you  put  Mrs.  Piper  among 
the  greatest  of  dramatists,  that  bottle  belongs,  with  Hodg- 
son's "  Here's  ditto,"  among  the  most  "  evidential "  things  in 
the  record — evidential,  that  is,  of  something  outside  of  Mrs. 
Piper  and  any  other  person  whom  we  call  living. 

But  to  return  to  the  sitting  (p.  165f.)  : 

"  (G.  P.  communicating.)  '  He  is  trying  very  hard,  let  him 
dream  it  out  H  and  he  will  be  all  right.  If  he  says  anything 
clearly,  congratulate  him  help  him  by  words  of  encouragement 
only,  remember  he  has  nothing  or  no  one  except  yourself  to 
attract  him  here.'  R.  H. : '  Yes.  Is  he  the  young  man's  father  ? ' 


Ch.  XL VI]    Hodgson  Living,  with  Thompsons  751 

G.  P. :  '  he  is  surely.  Agnes  is  his  daughter.'  R.  H. :  '  Yes  ? ' 
G.  P. :  '  So  he  tells  me.'  R.  H. :  '  Shall  I  talk  to  him? '  G.  P. : 
'  Just  encourage  him  a  little  by  telling  him  who  you  are  etc. 
what  your  object  is  etc.  It  will  help  him  greatly.'  R.  H. :  'I 
will  explain  in  answer  to  your  inquiry  who  I  am, — that  I  am  an 
old  friend  of  Professor  Lodge.'  T. :  '  L  o  D  G  E.'  R.  H. :  '  Yes.' 
T. :  '  What  my  old  neighbor  in  Liv.  (Excitement  in  hand  which 
cramps  and  twists  about.)  'calm  friend  (Between  sp[irits? 
H.H.])  Li ...  (Excitement  stops  the  writing  again.)  Drugs 
...  Do  not  go.  Wait  for  me.  LIVERSTOOL.'  R.  H. :  '  Liver- 
pool, you  mean.'  T. :  '  I  say  so.  I  say  so  I  say  so  I  say  so  I 
say  so  [sic.]  . . .'  R.  H. :  '  Yes  I  understand.'  T. :  '  I  say  so. 
Liverstool '  [Livestool  ?]  R.  H. :  '  Liver-pool.  POOL.  R '  [B= 
Rector.]  T. :  '  I  live  I  live  I  had  three  daughters  one  son 
[true]  (scrawls  over  sheet)  ...  I  want  to  help  them  all  all  all. 
God  help  me  to  help  them  to  understand  that  I  am  alive.'  R.  H. : 
'Yes?'  T. :  'I  am  confused  [confussed]  No  doubt  but  I  will 
be  better  soon  it  is  so  hard  to  understand.  You  look  so  heavy,  a 
black  cloud  comes  over  you  and  I  can  scarcely  see  you.  Do  you 
know  me  ? '  R.  H. :  '  I  do  not  know  you  personally,  but  I  now 
know  your  son  who  came  with  me.  Did  you  not  see  the  lady  in 
England  with  Professor  Lodge  through  whom  you  are  now  com- 
municating ?  I  mean  the  light  ? '  T. :  '  Oh  I  cannot  tell  you 
yet  wait  until  I  find  my  way  about.'  R.  H. :  '  Don't . . .'  T. : 
'  Tell  me  all  about  yourself  first.  I  want  to  get  acquainted  with 
you.'  R.  H. :  '  Yes  I  will.  Kindly  listen.'  T. :  '  I'll  do  my  best, 
because  I  want  to  reach  my  family,  very  very  much.'  R.  H. : 
'  I  am  interested  in  psychical  work  and  sent  Mrs.  Piper  many 
years  ago  to  England, — don't  you  remember  seeing  Mrs.  Piper  ? ' 
[At  the  sittings  in  1889.  H.H.]  T. : '  Piper? '  R.  H. : '  Yes,  and 
the . . .'  (Perturbation  in  hand.)  T. :  '  Oh  yes  I  remember 
Piper.  Was  Mrs.  Piper  a  Medium,  an  American  lady  ? '  R.  H. : 
'  Yes.'  T. :  '  Oh  yes  Oh  yes  I  do  I  do,  but  I'll  find  her  out  and 
come  to  you  if  it  is  a  possible  thing.  What  is  your  name  ? '  R.  H. : 
'  My  name  is  Hodgson,  Richard  Hodgson.'  T. :  '  Can't  you  spell 
it  for  me?'  R.  H.:  '  Hodgson.'  T. :' Oh  he  is  telling  me 
thank  you  grettly.' " 

Sir  Oliver  explains  this  remarkable  bit  of  drama — all  "  put 
up,"  of  course,  and  on  the  spur  of  the  moment!  (p.  171) : 

"  Whereas  the  Thompson  control  had  been  trying  to  under- 
stand with  difficulty  what  Dr.  Hodgson  was  saying,  he  was  now 
being  told  on  his  own  side  by  G.  P.,  whom  he  thanks — all  this 
by-play  being,  now  as  often,  automatically  recorded  by  the  writ- 
ing hand." 

The  record  continues  (p.  167f.) : 

"  T. :  '  Let  me  think.  I  am  so  anxious  to  TT.D.  all  about  this 
then  I  can  talk  with  you.'  R.  H. :  '  Well,  now,  Mr '  T. : 


752    The  Isaac  Thompson  Series  in  1906    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

'Where  are  we?  I  left  my  body  some  time  ago.  Where  are 
you  ? '  R.  H. :  '  This  is  America  where  I  am  now.'  T. :  '  Amer- 
ica?' [Note  that  the  distance  is  no  apparent  obstacle  to  the 
control  reaching  the  medium.  H.H.]  R.  H. :  '  Yes.'  T. :  '  Well 
well  that  is  very  interesting  to  me.  You  are  in  the  body  ? ' 
K.  H.:  'Yes  I  am.'  T.:  'Well,  happy?'  R.  H.:  'Yes,  both, 
thank  you.'  T. :  '  Splendid  I  begin  to  U.D.'  R.  H. :  '  Well  now 
I  will  tell  you  more  about  myself  and  Lodge.'  T. :  '  My  wife  is 
better  thank  you  I  am  watching  over  them,  but  my  business 
will  be  better  in  time.  I  am  trying  to  take  care  of  it  for  the 
children. ...  I  had  a  business  called . . .  sounds  like  DRUGS.  I 
am  helping  all  I  can  [this  was  evidently  Rector.]  (Hand  to 
Sp.  1.)  he  must  rest  -f-  '  [meaning  Imperator.]  R.  H. :  '  I  shall 
be  so  pleased  for  you  to  come  again  and  send  any  messages  you 
wish  to  your  family.'  '  he  will  return  in  a  moment  friend  but  I 
command  him  to  go  for  a  moment.  -f-  R.  (Thump  of  hand.) 
Mrs. . . .  kindly  Your  friend  George  is  the  very  best  helper  we 
have.'  R.  H. :  'I  am  very  grateful  to  him.'  [Rector  inquires. 
H.H.]  'Did  his  spirit  seem  any  clearer?  R.'  R.  H.:  'Yes  I 
should  judge  that  he  will  probably  be  a  very  clear  communicator 
shortly.'  R. :  '  talk  with  him  in  general  when  he  comes  whether 
he  gives  you  a  chance  or  not. . . .  chance  or  not ...  he  is  very 
earnest  but  he  does  not  U.D.  yet  our  methods.'  R.  H. :  '  No/ 
R. :  '  I  say  I  shall  return  and  help  you.  was  very  glad  I  came.' 
R.  H. :  '  Thank  you  very  much.'  T. :  *  I  could  not  U.D.  while 
you  [Rector?]  were  here  but  I  could  see  him  after  you  left. 
T '  R.  H. :  '  I  understand.' 

"  (During  the  waking  stage  Mrs.  Piper  said)  '. . .  Thompson 
[sic.]  . . .  with  you  all.'  [This  was  the  first  time  the  name  had 
been  mentioned.]  '  Before  I  let  you  go  [apparently  to  Rector  or 
George.  H.H.]  . . .  you  must  take  this  over  to  Mr.  Hodgson.  Tell 
him . . .'  R.  H. :  '  "  Tell  him  "  ? '  T. :  '  Tell  Mrs.  Thompson  I'm 
very  glad  to  be  here.  It  is  better  so.  I  am  grateful  for  all  God 
has  done  to  help  me. . . .  the  truth  will  find  its  way.  Farewell, 
fare  thee  well . . .  peace . . .'  [Remember,  the  Thompsons  were 
Quakers.  H.H.]  (Pause.)  [Mrs.  P.]  :  '  There  was  two  gentle- 
men resembling  each  other.  One  was  George,  the  other  was  an- 
other man  looked  something  like  him ' 

"  [L.]  The  excitement  which  the  hand  displays,  as  here  at  the 
mention  of  Lodge  and  Liverpool,  is  characteristic.  On  such  oc- 
casions it  twists  and  squirms  about  and  frequently  breaks  the 
point  of  the  pencil  by  pressure  against  the  paper.  It  is  as  if  the 
nerves  conveyed  too  strong  a  stimulus  to  the  muscles,  so  that 

until  the  excitement  abates  no  writing  can  go  on The  things 

said  are  all  true  and  appropriate. . . .  When  it  is  remembered 
that  the  whole  thing  is  being  obtained  through  Mrs.  Piper's  body, 
the  curiosity  of  the  position  is  obvious 

"  The  way  in  which  he  receives  the  information  that  Hodgson 
is  in  America, — where  in  1884  Isaac  Thompson  [the  control] 


Ch.  XLVI]  'At  a  Piddington  Sitting  753 

had  been  with  me  [Sir  Oliver.  H.H.]  alone  for  nine  weeks, — is 
also  very  natural;  and  his  inquiry  as  to  whether  Hodgson  is  a 
living  person  or  not  is  curious " 

Sir  Oliver  also  gives  the  following   (Pr.  XXIII,  171f.)  : 

"  A  record  has  been  sent  me  by  Mr.  Piddington  of  an  incident 
which  was  unexpectedly  interpolated  in  a  sitting  of  his  during  a 

risit  to  America  in  the  spring  of  1906 Mr.  Piddington  was 

ignorant  of  and  not  interested  in  the  Thompson  family.  The 
following  is  the  relevant  extract: — 

"  Portion  of  a  Sitting  held  ~by  J.  0.  P.  with  Mrs.  Piper  in  Boston 
on  23  May,  1906. 

u  [Rector]  :  '. . .  We  have  a  message  to  give  you  from  a  spirit 
whom  we  call  Thompson.  He  wishes  to  send  his  love  to  his  wife 
and  children  and  says  he  is  anxious  to  meet  Teddy  again.'  [Not 
Mr.  Roosevelt,  but  Mr.  Thompson's  son.  H.H.]  J.  G.  P. :  '  Yes, 
I  will  give  that  message  to  Ted.'  T. :  [Perhaps  through  Rector. 
H.H.]  '  Tell  him  not  to  feel  anxious  about  the  business  as  I  am 
helping  him  constantly.  (Hand  seemed  to  listen  and  then  wrote) 
I  was  sorry  about  Theo's  headaches  but  I  know  [she]  will  be 
better  now.  ( J.  G.  P.  read  '  Ted's '  instead  of  '  Theo's.')  Not 
Ted's.  Listen.  Theodore's.  Theo.'s  (read)  Yes,  correct.  Oh 
my,  I  hardly  realized  I  could  speak  so  well.'  J.  G.  P. :  '  Was 
that  the  spirit  Thompson  who  said  that  ? '  T. :  '  It  was  I  myself. 
I  hare  been  waiting  this  opportunity  a  very  long  time.' " 

Despite  what  was  said  a  little  way  back  about  Rector  doing 
all  the  talking,  some  of  the  rest  seem  to  get  in  very  well. 
It's  another  of  the  puzzles  about  the  Imperator  gang. 

Sir  Oliver  next  passes  to  the  sittings  in  England,  in  No- 
vember, 1906,  when  Mrs.  Piper  was  brought  over  by  the 
S.  P.  R.  He  says  (Pr.  XXIII,  174) : 

" The  getting  into  communication  at  a  strange  house 

in  America  was  evidently  difficult  and  tiresome  as  the  first 
[omitted]  sitting,  held  on  11  Dec.  1905,  shows :  but  here  in 
Isaac  Thompson's  own  home,  so  to  speak,  and  with  his  own 
family,  recognition  is  easy  enough, — though  even  there,  after 
the  interval,  not  quite  sudden.  The  change  of  locality  seems  a 
barely  recognized  incident,  he  continues  at  first  to  talk  to  his 
son  much  as  he  had  tried  to  do  before ;  but  the  excitement,  when 
at  a  certain  stage  in  the  sitting  the  widow  let  her  presence  be 
known  and  her  voice  heard,  was  very  great  and  remarkable." 

Sitting  No.  1,  Liverpool,  November  10,  1906.    (Pr.XXIII,l75f.) 

"Present:  Mrs.  Isaac  (Susan)  Thompson,  Edwin  Thompson, 
and  sister,  with  O.  J.  L.  recording. 


754    The  Isaac  Thompson  Series  in  1906    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

" '  -f  HAIL.'  (Hand  raised.  Cross  in  air.)  0.  J.  L. :  '  Hail, 
Imperator ! ' 

Sir  Oliver  seems  to  have  caught  it  too ! 

" '  We  return  to  earth  once  more  this  day  with  peace  and 
love  -f-  R.'  [The  written  signs  of  Imperator  and  Rector.  H.H.] 
R. :  '  A  spirit  is  present  whom  we  have  seen  before,  he  is  implor- 
ing us  to  let  him  speak.'  O.  J.  L.:  'Yes  we  wish  to  speak  to 
him.'  R. :  '  We  understand  you  very  well,  friend,  and  you  are 
understanding  me  also.'  [Then  came  the  change  of  control, 
either  real  or  simulated,  and  O.  J.  L.  gives  place  to  E.  T.  as 
sitter.]  (Excitement  in  hand,  many  scrawls.)  L  T. :  '  I  am  so 
very  glad  to  return  again.  I  have  longed  to  speak  once  more.' 
E.  T. :  '  Have  you  ever  communicated  with  me  before  through 
this  medium  ? '  I.  T. :  '  Are  you  by  any  possibility  my  son  ? ' 
E.  T. :  '  Yes,  have  you  spoken  to  me  before  ? '  I.  T. :  '  Oh  yes,  do 
you  not  remember  how  difficult  it  was  for  me  to  reach  you  under 
those  new  and  strange  conditions?  [In  America.  H.H.]  I  am 
so  delighted  to  see  you  again.  I  cannot  think  fast  enough.  God 

bless  you  my  boy.  I  have  been  helping  you  and  Theodo ' 

E.  T. :  'Can  you  give  your  name?'  'What  name?  R.'  [Rector 
writes.  H.H.]  E.  T. :  '  I  do  not  know  who  it  is  yet.'  '  Neither  do 
I.  R.  Theoder.  THE'  E.  T. : '  Oh,  you  mean  Theodora.'  I.  T. : 
'  All  the  time  I  am  helping  her.'  [Now  Rector  apparently  re- 
ports what  I.  T.  says.  H.H.]  E.  T. :  '  Do  you  remember  speaking 
to  me  before  ? '  I.  T. :  '  God  bless  you.  Not  long  ago,  but  it  was 
not  here. ...  I  am  your  father,  I  am,  and  I  sent  several  messages 
to  you  through  a  friend  who  came  with  you,  and  who  is  now  on 
our  side.  [This  of  course  refers  to  Dr.  Hodgson.]  Do  you 
understand,  my  son?...  How  is' it  you  do  not  speak?'  E.  T. : 
'  Can  you  give  any  message  that  I  can  tell  mother  ? ' 

"  [O.  J.  L.]  The  trance  personalities  appear  to  be  ignorant 
of,  or  to  be  groping  after,  a  number  of  things  that  Mrs.  Piper 
knows  quite  well,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  to  attain  knowledge  of 
which  she  is  ...  entirely  ignorant 

"  I.  T. :  '  Tell  her  I  am  sorry  I  did  not  understand  about  com- 
ing here.  Had  I,  I  should  have  arranged  things  differently  for 
her.  Take  good  care  of  her  will  you  ? '  E.  T. :  '  She  is  here, 
would  you  like  to  speak  with  her  ? '  L  T. :  '  Oh  yes,  oh  yes,  oh 
yes.  Why  did  you  not  tell  me  before  ? '  Mrs.  T. :  '  Do  you  see 
me  ? '  I.  T. :  '  I  hear  her  speak.  (Excitement.  Breaks  pencil.) 
Isa '  Mrs.  T. :  «  Do  you  see  me? '  I.  T. :  '  I  do,  I  do,  I  do,  I  do. 
Isaac.'  Mrs.  T. : '  Can  you  call  me  by  my  name  ? '  I.  T. : '  S  s  s  A. 
Let  me  free  my  mind  and  tell  you  how  I  feel.  I  am  not  dead 
now,  but  I  am  speaking  with  you.  Isauc.  [Sic.  H.H.]  I  am  he. 
Do  you  remember  Issa.  Issa.  Susa.  Susa.'  Mrs.  T. :  '  Can 
you  help  me  about  Theodora?'  [Their  daughter  was  not  well. 
H.H.]  I.  T. :  '  Yes  I  can  now,  but  I  did  not  before.  Dear,  are 


Ch.  XLVI]  The  Family  Sitting  755 

you  tired  ?  Are  you  tired  and  discouraged  at  times  ? '  Mrs.  T. : 
'  Yes,  Isaac,  since  you  went.'  I.  T. :  '  Better  I  came.  Think  it 
so.  Can't  you  see  me  ? '  Mrs.  T. : '  No,  I  cannot.'  I.  T. :  '  Susar 
Susan  Susu  Susin '  (Excitement,  scrawls.)  Mrs.  T. :  '  Shall 
Theodora  come  in  ?  Would  you  like  to  see  her  ? '  I.  T. :  '  Yes, 
more  than  you  think.'  Mrs.  T. :  '  Here  is  Theodora.'  I.  T. : 
'  She  is  going  to  get  well  and  get  stronger  and  better  than  ever 
before  in  all  her  life.  She  has  light,  she  has  light,  but  do  not 
use  it.  It  isn't  good  for  her.'  Mrs.  T. :  '  You  mean  she  could 
write  automatically,  but  is  not  to  try ! '  I.  T. : '  Correct.  Do  not 
let  her  do  so,  I  beg  of  you.  Father.  Papa.  [Last  two  words  as 
signatures.  H.H.]  I  wish  you  to  get  all  good  out  of  that  life : 
that  let  me  desire  for  you.  [  ?]  Dear  Theo,  you  have  a  claim  to 
health — it  is  your  right.'  T.  T. :  '  Can  you  tell  me  anything  I 
should  do  to  get  strong?'  I.  T.:  'Yes,  Til  ask  the  Doctor,  I'll 
call  the  Doctor.  (Change  of  control.)  Come  here.'  (Then  the 
control  calling  itself  '  Doctor '  [presumably  not  Phinuit,  but  one 
of  the  Imperator  group.  H.H.]  entered  into  long  medical  details 
and  precepts.) 

"  [L.]  Then  the  Isaac  Thompson  control  returned  and  talked 
of  business  matters  with  his  son,  and  was  much  interested  to 

hear  about  the  result  of  a  lawsuit,  begun  before  he  died The 

anxiety  to  be  told  about  it — a  matter  which  had  weighed  on  his 
mind  and  caused  him  a  good  deal  of  worry  just  at  the  end  of  his 
life — seemed  quite  genuine. 

"  I.  T. : '  Good  for  you.  [  ?]  I  shall  be  happier  to  understand. 
I  tried  to  tell  that  man  who  helped  me  reach  you  in  America, 
and  who  is  now  with  me.'  [Hodgson  had  "  passed  over  "  about  a 
year  before.  H.H.]  E.  T. :  '  Who  is  that  ? '  I.  T. :  «  His  name  is 
Hodgson.'  E.  T. :  *  Oh  yes,  Dr.  Hodgson.  I  understand.'  I.  T. ; 
'  And  he  is  helping  me  now. . . .'  E.  T. :  '  Would  you  like  to 
speak  to  Agnes  ? '  L  T. :  '  I  should,  I  should,  I  should.'  [Agnes 
is  the  married  daughter,  living  in  another  town. — O.J.L.]  E.  T. : 
'  Shall  she  come  to-morrow  or  next  day  ? '  I.  T. : '  I  do  not  under- 
stand. Ask  Rector You  are  all  talking  at  once,  and  I  do  not 

understand  you.'  [Is  this  telepathy?  H.H.]  O.  J.  L. :  '  Shall  we 
all  go  out  of  the  room  except  one  ? '  I.  T. :  '  No,  stop  talking. 
What  is  that  fellow  doing?  (An  organ-grinder  was  playing  out- 
side in  the  street,  and  the  sound  coming  in  through  the  open 
window  evidently  introduced  confusion.  This  must  have  been 
what  was  spoken  of  as  '  all  talking  at  once.')  What  are  you  do- 
ing? Stop  it,  stop  it.  Rector.'  O.  J.  L. :  '  We  have  sent  out  to 
stop  it.'  I.  T. :  '  What  is  he  talking  about  ? '  O.  J.  L. :  '  It  was  a 
man  outside,  we  have  sent  out  to  stop  the  noise.'  I.  T. :  '  Oh  I 

understand '  E.  T. :  '  Has  my  father  gone  away  now  ? '  R. : 

1  He  is  here,  but  he  is  getting  weak.'  I.  T. :  '  Good-by  for  the 
present,  I  will  speak  again.  Good-by  children,  I  will  speak 
again.  Darling  S.  Are  you  getting  on  well  without  me?  I 
am  looking  after  you,  and  when  you  think  of  me  I  am  nearest 


756    The  Isaac  Thompson  Series  in  1906    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV. 

you.  You  are  a  part  of  me  always.  I  am  a  part  of  you  always,  a 
part  of  you  always.  Nearest  you  dear.' 

"  [L.]  In  continuation  of  what  I  have  said  above  (Pr.XXIII, 
177)  about  the  normal  knowledge  of  Mrs.  Piper  having  little  or 
no  influence  on  the  knowledge  shown  by  the  controls,  the  instance 
of  the  surprise  and  eagerness  shown  by  the  Isaac  Thompson  con- 
trol when  told  that  Mrs.  Isaac  Thompson  was  present  is  a  case 
in  point.  For  of  course  Mrs.  Piper  had  known  perfectly  well  the 
people  likely  to  be  present  at  the  sitting. . . .  Although . . .  we  can- 
not claim  anything  as  evidential  when  it  comes  out  in  the  trance 
if  it  had  ever  been  known  to  Mrs.  Piper,  I  myself  am  unable  to 
trace  much,  if  any,  connection  between  the  trance  knowledge 
and  her  normal  knowledge.  [Both  seem  mixed  as  in  other 
dreams.  H.H.]  For  instance,  a  sitter  introduced  by  name  is  no 
more  likely  to  have  his  name  mentioned  during  a  sitting  than 
one  who  is  introduced  as  an  anonymous  stranger " 

Sitting  No.  2,  Liverpool,  November  11, 1906.    (Pr.XXIH,184f.) 

"  O.  J.  L.  again  present. 

" I.  T. :  '  May  I  speak  to  my  wife  alone  ? '  (All  go  out 

but  Mrs.  T.)  Mrs.  T. : '  Do  you  see  me  Isaac  ? '  I.  T. :  '  Yes  I  do 
see  you  dear,  and  I  love  you  dearly.  I  see  it  clearly.  I  know  you 
are,  dear,  and  when  you  think  of  me  I  know  it ' 

"  She  was  called  by  the  right  abbreviation  of  her  Christian 

name  which  he  always  used In  a  previous  set  the  '  Uncle 

Edwin '  called  her  by  another  abbreviation — which  was  the  ap- 
propriate one  also  in  his  case. . . .  He  called  Ted  as  usual,  but . . . 
not ...  by  a  childish  nickname  which  was  asked  for  and  not 
given 

"  While  coming  out  of  trance  Mrs.  Piper  spoke :  '. . .  I  saw 
you  before.  It  is  fearful.  [This  means  that  she  dislikes  chang- 
ing from  her  trance  state  and  coming  back  to  ordinary  surround- 
ings.] They  are  going  away.  It's  awful.  Too  bad.  Snap. 
[This  refers  to  a  sensation  which  she  calls  a  snap  in  the  head, 
which  nearly  always  precedes  a  return  to  consciousness.  Some- 
times it  heralds  almost  a  sudden  return ;  and  she  is  always  more 
conscious  after  a  snap  than  she  was  before;  but  often  it  takes 
two  snaps  to  bring  her  completely  to.  What  the  snap  is  I  do  not 
know,  but  I  expect  it  is  something  physiological.  It  is  not  audi- 
ble to  others,  though  Mrs.  Piper  half  seems  to  expect  it  to  be  so.] 
...  I  saw  a  man  in  the  light,  which  looked  like  Mr.  Thompson. 
Kept  waving  his  hand.  The  man  with  the  cross  was  helping  him 
out.  ['  The  man  with  the  cross '  is  intended  to  signify  Im- 
perator.]  ...  I  came  in  on  a  cord,  a  silver  cord.  [In  all  sorts  of 
trance  dreams  there  are  notions  of  the  separated  soul  being  con- 
nected with  its  body  by  a  cord,  apparently  at  the  umbilicus. 
H.H.]  Miss  Thompson.  [Recognizing  her.  H.H.]  I  thought 
you  were  small.  Looking  through  opera  glasses  at  wrong  end. 
You  grew  larger.  Did  you  hear  my  head  snap  ?  It  breaks.  I 


Ch.  XLVI]  'Seven  Months  Later  757 

forgot  where  we  were  sitting.  Why  Mrs.  Thompson,  I  didn't 
know  you  were  there.  My  cold.' " 

Here  is  part  of  a  letter  from  Edwin  Thompson  about 
sitting  No.  3  (Pr.  XXIII,  187) : 

" Mother  asked  if  he  recognized  the  room,  and  you  will 

see  the  answer  is  correct  (the  hand  looked  round  for  some  time)  : 
and  then  when  we  said  Good-by,  he  said  he  never  did  like  Good- 
by;  which  is  perfectly  true,  although  at  the  time,  when  we  said 
it,  we  did  not  think  of  it." 

Sitting  No.  17,  Liverpool  July  3rd,  1907.    (Pr.XXIII,191f.) 

[Over  seven  months  after  next  previous  Thompson  sitting. 
H.H.] 

" I.  T. :  '  Good  morning  my  boy,  I  am  glad  to  see  you 

again;  did  you  and  mother  receive  my  message?  you  and 
mother.'  E.  T. :  '  Yes,  we  did.'  I.  T. : '  I  want  to  tell  you  that  I 
have  a  new  friend  here  whom  I  was  very  glad  to  meet.  Chas. 
[Rector?  H.H.]  He  says  Chas.  Chas  Chare  Charl'  E.  T.: 
'  We  do  understand,  but  can  you  spell  that  word  correctly  ?  I'll 
ask  your  father.  R.'  [Thereby  indicating  that  Rector  is  really 
conveying  the  messages. — O.J.L.]  I.  T. :  '  Yes.  CHARES 
CHARES  CHARLES  [Charles  E.  Stevens,  brother  of  Mrs. 
T.,  died  on  22  May,  1907.]  [Some  six  weeks  before  sitting. 
H.H.]  sends  love  to  M.'  [Probably  Mary  his  sister.]  E.  T.: 
'Is  that  M.?'  C.  E.  S.:  'Yes.  I  didn't  realize  I  was  com- 
ing over.  [He  died  suddenly  from  apoplexy.]  Oh  dear.  I 

am  so  glad  to  understand  it  now 1  want  you  to  look  up 

a  picture  I  ordered  before  I  left,  and  it  never  came.'  E.  T. : 
'  Can  you  tell  us  from  whom  you  ordered  it  ? '  C.  E.  S. :  '  That 
would  be  difficult  to  get  through  to  thee  [He  was  a  Quaker. 
H.H.],  but  I  ordered  it  from  a  friend  of  mine,  who  used  to  take 

my  orders,  and  get  them  for  me '  Mrs.  T. :  '  Yes,  Charlie, 

the  picture  did  come  after  you  left,  and  Mary  sent  the  bill  of  it 
to  Mr.  Alsop  to  pay.'  [E.  T.  did  not  know  anything  about  this.] 
C.  E.  S. : '  Oh  I  am  so  glad  to  understand.'  Mrs.  T. :  '. . .  Is  there 
any  other  message  thou  would  like  to  give  about  anything  ? ' 
(Then  again  he  refers  to  his  sister.)  '. .  .She  will  come  over  to 
me  some  time  but  before  she  comes  I  want  you  all  to  look  after 
her.'  Mrs.  T. :  '  But  you  have  no  reason  to  think  that  she  will 
join  you  shortly?'  C.  E.  S. :  'I  have  reason  for  asking  you  to 
take  good  care  of  her.  Ted,  is  this  you?'  E.  T. :  'Yes,  it  is, 
Uncle  Charlie.'  C.  E.  S. :  '  I  am  glad  to  see  you.' 

"  (Then  he  gives  his  nephew  business  advice  and  again  refers 
to  family  matters,  mentioning  names  quite  familiarly  and  cor- 
rectly, though  some  of  them  were  also  mentioned  by  the  sitters, 
in  a  fairly  natural  conversational  way  on  both  sides, — . . .  Then 
4  Charles '  disappeared,  and  his  brother-in-law, '  Isaac  Thompson,' 


758     The  Isaac  Thompson  Series  in  1906    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

once  more  sent  messages  and  advice  about  business — showing 
rather  detailed  knowledge  on  some  points.  Then  he  addressed 
Mrs.  Thompson  again : — )  '  Oh  dear  Sue,  did  you  understand  my 
message  ? '  Mrs.  T. :  '  Do  you  mean  the  message  that  came 
through  Sir  Oliver?'  I.  T.:  'Yes  I  do.'  Mrs.  T. :' Yes  I  did 
get  it.  Did  you  see  Charlie  when  he  went  over?'  I.  T. :  'Oh 
yes,  I  was  by  his  side  and  helped  him  to  find  his  way Theo- 
dora dear  are  you  better.  (Theodora  had  just  come  into  the 
room.)  I  say  you.  R.  Because  I  understand  it  better.  Rector. 
He  says  Thee,  but  I  say  you.  I  understand  it  better.  [The 
Thompsons,  it  will  be  remembered,  were  Quakers.  H.H.]  . . . 
Dearest,  you  feel  troubled  don't  you?  Well  I  do  not  wish  you  to.' 
Mrs.  T. :  '  I  can't  help  it  Isaac.'  I.  T. :  '  But  don't,  if  you  only 
won't  I  know  dear  Sue  everything  is  all  right.  (E.  T.  indicates 
that  time  is  up.)  Yes  but  let  me  say  one  word  more;  may  I 
not  ? '  E.  T. :  '  Yes,  but  we  have  only  one  more  minute.'  I.  T. : 
'  Sue  dear,  feel  that  all  is  going  to  be  right,  and  it  will  be,  and  we 
shall  meet  again.'  [What  follows  shows  that  he  means  through 
the  medium.  H.H.]  Mrs.  T. :  '  Yes,  that  is  what  I  am  looking 
forward  to.'  I.  T. :  'I  too,  when  it  is  right.  I  shall  be  so  glad. 
That  is  what  light  is  for.  Good-by.  Ted  my  boy  I  am  not  over- 
looking you  at  all,  my  love  and  all  my  help  for  you ;  father.' 
"  '  -f-  we  cease  now,  and  may  the  blessings  of  God  rest  on  you. 

" '  +  Farewell  (R.)  ' 3 

The  Last  of  Phinuit 

And  now  we  come  to  the  very  last  of  that  "preposterous 
scoundrel/'  "monumental  liar,"  etc.,  etc.,  dear  old  Phinuit. 
We  saw  the  fell  designs  upon  him  of  the  Imperator  gang  in 
Chapter  XXXVI.  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  says  of  the  llth  sitting 
in  this  series,  in  1907  (Pr.  XXIII,  280-1)  : 

u  [O.  J.  L.]  It  was  of  some  interest  to  me  to  see  what  the 
Controls  of  recent  times  had  to  say  about  the  ancient  Control 
calling  itself  Phinuit ;  and  accordingly  I  asked  questions ...  of 
which  the  record  stands  as  follows: — 

"O.  J.  L. :  'May  I  ask  a  question?  Does  "Phinuit"  mean 
anything  to  you  ? '  [Apparently  Rector :  see  below.  H.H.]  '  You 
mean  Dr.  Phinuit.  Oh  yes,  we  see  him  occasionally,  friend;  he 
is  in  another  sphere  of  this  life,  no  longer  earth-bound,  and  he 
is  very  well  and  very  happy.'  O.  J.  L. :  '  He  was  a  friend  of 
mine.'  [By  this  I  meant  that  during  the  old  Piper  sittings  I 
was  on  friendly  and  even  affectionate  terms  with  this  curious 
and  not  universally  appreciated  impersonator.]  R. :  '  Could  you 
by  any  possibility  be  the  friend  on  earth  whom  he  called  "  Cap- 
tain"?' O.  J.  L. :  'Yes  indeed,  that  is  me.'  (Excitement  in 
hand.)  R. :  'Would  you  like  to  see  and  speak  with  him?' 
O.  J.  L. :  'I  should  if  it  did  him  no  harm.'  R. :  '  Oh  no  harm  in 


Ch.  XLVI]  The  Last  of  Phinuit  759 

the  least;  he  is  beyond  harm,  friend;  he  has  so  progressed.  He 
will  no  doubt  be  glad  to  return.  We  will  speak  with  him  and 
report  his  doings.  This  also.'  O.  J.  L. :  '  Will  you  give  him  my 
love  ? '  R. :  '  I  will  give  him  your  love  certainly  with  great 
pleasure.  He  is  a  much  better  spirit  than  he  was  thought  to 
have  been.  He  fell  in  with  the  wrong  element  to  begin  with. 
UJX  Wrong  i.e.,  on  the  earthly  side.  I  will  see  him  and  report 
at  our  next  meeting.  R.' 

"  And  at  the  next  sitting  at  which  I  was  present  the  following 
came: — R. :  'We  found  Phinuit,  and  gave  him  your  message. 
He  sends  his  love  in  return  and  says  if  you  would  like  to  speak 
with  him,  really,  he  would  endeavor  to  return  to  you  through  the 

light  at  our  next  meeting;  and  he  says he  remembers  you 

and  your  companion — with  deepest  affection  and  appreciation 
of  his  anxious  efforts  to  tell  of  our  world  and  its  inhab- 
itants —  —  — '  O.  J.  L.:  'Well,  I  do  not  know  that  it 
would  be  good  for  the  machine  to  ask  him  to  return;  moreover 
I  am  not  sure  that  we  shall  have  another  sitting  here.'  R. :  '  You 
must  speak  to-j-  [Imperator.  H.H.]  about  his  returning  next  time 
through  the  voice,  which  he  would  be  glad  to  do  himself.  U.D. 
R.'  O.  J.  L. :  '  Please  thank  him,  but  I  do  not  know  that  there 
is  any  object  in  getting  him  to  speak.'  R. :  '  Oh  yes.  Well 
friend,  we  were  about  to  say  that  he,  Dr.  Phinuit  is  not  in  the 
least  anxious  to  return  to  earth  again,  as  he  had  quite  enough 
while  he  was  there.'  O.  J.  L. :  '  Very  well  then,  please  remember 
me  to  him  kindly.'  R. :  '  Yes,  we  certainly  will  do  so.' 

"  I  don't  know  whether  it  was  wise  thus  to  discourage  a  tem- 
porary return  of  Phinuit.  The  fact  is,  I  felt  it  to  be  rather  too 
much  of  a  responsibility  to  interfere  with  the  conditions  of  con- 
trol; especially  as  the  entry  of  Phinuit,  in  past  times,  had  been 
usually  accompanied  with  contortions  and  some  slight  apparent 
discomfort.  The  oncoming  of  the  trance  is  now-a-days  so  placid 
that  I  thought  it  best  to  leave  well  alone;  but  I  confess  that  it 
would  have  been  interesting  to  see  whether  the  Phinuit  person- 
ality would  have  reappeared,  with  all  its  original  peculiarities 
unchanged." 

These  sittings  have  inspired  Sir  Oliver  with  some  remarks 
on  the  apparently  petty  and  decidedly  secular  interests  mani- 
fested by  the  controls,  which  specially  deserve  quotation  (Pr. 
XXIII,  196-8)  : 

"  Scattered  through  all  the  sittings  are  innumerable  instances 
of  this  sort  of  curious  memory  of  and  interest  in  trifles . . . 

such  references  are  the  commonest  of  all Granted  the  most 

completely  spiritistic  hypothesis,  it  would  appear  that  the  state 
after  death  is  not  a  sudden  plunge  into  a  stately,  dignified,  and 
specially  religious  atmosphere.  The  environment,  like  the  char- 
acter, appears  to  be  much  more  like  what  it  is  here  than  some 


760    The  Isaac  Thompson  Series  in  1906    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

folk  imagine A  few  of  the  controls,  when  recently  deceased 

(a  pious  old  lady  in  particular  is  in  my  mind),  have  said  that 
the  surroundings  were  more  '  secular '  than  they  expected ;  they 
have  indeed  expressed  themselves  as  if  a  little  disappointed, 
though  they  nearly  always  say  that  the  surroundings  are  better 
than  they  are  here.  Anyhow,  there  appears  to  be  no  violent  or 
sudden  change  of  nature;  and  so  anyone  who  has  cared  for 
trinkets  may  perhaps  after  a  fashion  care  for  them  still. 

"  But  there  must  be  more  than  that  even.  Objects  appear  to 
serve  as  attractive  influences,  or  nuclei,  from  which  information 

may  be  clairvoyantly  gained No  one  expects  people  to  be 

wholly  indifferent  as  to  the  posthumous  disposal  of  their  prop- 
erty  Very  well,  on  what  scale  shall  we  estimate  property,  and 

how  shall  we  measure  its  value?  It  is  conceivable  that,  seen 
from  another  side,  little  personal  relics  may  awaken  memories 
more  poignant  than  those  associated  with  barely  recollected 
stocks  and  shares 

"  However  that  may  be,  it  is  clear  that  the  various  Piper  con- 
trols do  not  estimate  the  importance  of  property  by  any  standard 
dependent  on  pounds  sterling.  As  a  variant  on  old  lockets,  old 
letters,  and  other  rubbish,  in  which  Phinuit  seemed  to  take  some 
interest,  I  once  gave  him  a  five-pound  note.  It  was  amusing  to 
see  how  at  first  he  tried  to  read  it — in  his  usual  way  by  applying 
it  to  the  top  of  the  medium's  head ; — and  then  on  realizing  the 
sort  of  thing  it  was,  how  he  crumpled  it  up  and  flung  it  into  a 
corner  with  a  grunt,  holding  out  his  hand  for  something  of  in- 
terest. Needless  to  say,  I  did  not  share  in  this  estimate  of  value, 
and,  after  the  sitting,  was  careful  to  rescue  the  despised  piece 
of  paper  from  its  perilous  position." 

Sir  Oliver  devotes  a  chapter  in  his  report  in  Vol.  XXIII 
to  messages  from  the  Myers  control,  with  a  little  dash  of 
Hodgson,  received  by  him  through  Mrs.  Piper.  They  corre- 
spond in  general  character  with  the  Myers  messages  through 
other  mediums,  except  in  the  point  of  scholarship  heretofore 
noted  regarding  the  Myers  control;  but  they  do  not  add 
enough  to  what  we  already  have,  and  are  to  have,  to  justify 
giving  them  any  of  our  limited  space. 

He  closes  the  report  with  his  reasons  for  accepting  the 
spiritistic  hypothesis,  mainly  to  the  same  effect  as  Hodgson's 
already  given — that  no  other  hypothesis  fits  the  facts,  and 
that  the  spiritistic  one  does. 


CHAPTEE  XLVII 
CROSS-CORRESPONDENCES 

AT  the  cost  of  considerable  independence  of  chronology, 
we  now  approach  the  very  instructive  and  tedious  subject  of 
Cross-Correspondences,  which  has  lately  attracted  more  atten- 
tion from  the  S.  P.  R.  than  any  other  topic. 

If  Mrs.  Verrall  in  London  and  Mrs.  Holland  in  India  both, 
at  about  the  same  time,  write  heteromatically  about  a  subject 
that  they  both  understand,  that  is  probably  coincidence ;  but 
if  both  write  about  it  when  but  one  of  them  understands  it, 
that  is  probably  teloteropathy;  and  if  both  write  about  it 
when  neither  understands  it,  and  each  of  their  respective 
writings  is  apparently  nonsense,  but  both  make  sense  when 
put  together,  the  only  obvious  hypothesis  is  that  both  were 
inspired  by  a  third  mind.  The  term  Cross-Correspondence 
has  been  reserved  for  such  a  phenomenon,  and  there  are  so 
many  of  them,  and  of  such  quality,  as  apparently  to  eliminate 
much  probability  of  their  being  mere  coincidence  or  telo- 
teropathy between  the  writers. 

Yet,  as  with  nearly  everything  else,  it  is  hard  to  tell  where 
one  thing  ends  and  the  next  begins — what  is  teloteropathy 
between  the  heteromatists,  and  what  the  apparent  interven- 
tion of  the  outside  intelligence. 

In  the  border  region  was  a  feature  of  my  Piper  sitting 
(Chapter  XXVIII).  Out  of  a  perfectly  clear  sky  came  to  me 
in  New  York  on  April  28,  1894,  the  message  from  G.  P.,  to 
look  out  for  A,  who  was  low  in  his  mind,  and  that  B.  was 
trying  to  get  a  place  for  him.  On  May  29th,  Hodgson  writes 
me,  showing  that  the  same  thing  had  come  up  through  the 
heteromatic  writing  of  A.'s  wife  at  Granada  in  Cpain,  and 
meant  nothing  to  her  or  to  A. 

"Dear  Holt: 

"  You  may  be  interested  in  the  inclosed.  Keep  private.  [This 
injunction  is  of  course  outlawed  by  time,  but  I  still  conceal  the 
names  of  the  parties.  H.H.]  and  please  return.  I  am  writing 

761 


762  'Cross-Correspondences     [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

from  my  den,  and  haven't  copy  of  your  sitting  at  hand.    But  I 
remember  that  something  was  said  at  your  sitting  re  B.  and  A." 

(Copy  of  Enclosure.) 
"  Dear  H.[odgson]  :  "  GRANADA,  May  6,  1894. 

"  Those  suggestions  from  Geo.  that  I  write  to  B.  prove  inter- 
esting in  the  light  of  what  I  first  learned  here :  that  he  had  been 
lamenting  my  silence  and  had  been  urging  me  to  a  place  at 
Yale  where  he  is.  I  had  no  notion  of  this  move  on  his  part 
till  four  days  ago  when  I  received  a  letter  telling  me.  Of  course 
nothing  came  of  it,  but  anything  less  known  than  that  cannot 
be  imagined.  The  message  came  once  earlier  thro'  [his  wife. 
H.H.],  to  whom  George  wrote  it  [heteromatically.  H.H.].  George 
never  heard  of  B.  nor  saw  him,  nor  did  we  ever  speak  of  B.  to 
Geo.  or  Phinuit.  I  wrote  about  this  to  Professor  Sidgwick  (who 
had  written  me  a  letter,  forwarded  hither,  apropos  of  a  line  I 
wrote  to  Journal  abt.  Bashworth's  letter).  Of  course  I  don'i 
want  mention  made  of  the  effort  of  B.  to  get  me  the  Yale  place. 
What  Geo.  said  was  to  write  to  B. ;  he  is  a  good  friend  of  yours 
[i.e.,  the  writer,  A.  H.H.]. 

"  All  send  kind  messages.    Yrs.  ever,  "  A ." 

Being  intensely  busy,  and  not  as  much  interested  in  the 
matter  as  later  experiences  have  made  me,  I  did  not  at  the 
moment  catch  the  full  purport  of  Hodgson's  letter,  or  write 
him  till  June  5th,  and  did  not  keep  any  copy  that  I  can  find 
of  my  letter.  He  wrote  me  on  the  8th : 

"  Dear  Holt : 

"  Thanks  for  yours  of  June  5th,  with  return  of  A.'s  letter.  I 
knew  nothing  whatever  of  the  circumstances  connected  with  B., 
neither,  so  far  as  I  can  tell  by  cross-questioning,  did  Mrs. 
Piper." 

And  I,  the  present  scribe,  certainly  did  not.  A.  did  not. 
B.  alone  did,  with  whatever  persons  he  may  have  approached 
on  the  matter,  and  Mrs.  Piper  had  presumably  never  seen 
one  of  the  group.  So  where  did  Mrs.  Piper  and  Mrs.  A.  get 
it?  Either  they  got  it  teloteropathically  from  one  of  those 
persons,  or  George  Pelham  himself  told  me  of  it  through 
her  organism  in  New  York,  and  four  days  later  was  working 
it  into  a  cross-correspondence  through  Mrs.  A.  in  Spain.  At 
first  blush  the  former  seems  easier;  and  I  am  not  sure  but 
that  it  does  on  reflection. 

So  I  wrote  a  year  or  more  before  I  revised  these  proofs. 
I  don't  think  so  now — my  judgment  is  about  balanced. 

Hodgson's  letter  continues: 


Ch.  XLYII]    From  the  'Author's  Experience  763 

"  I  never  knew  of  any  B.  connected  with  Yale.  When  B.  was 
first  mentioned  at  the  sitting,  I  had  a  vague  notion  that  some 
B.  or  other  had  gone  to  England  or  France  as  United  States 

consul.    I  also  knew  the  name  of B.  [a  celebrated 

author.  H.H.],  and  met  her  after  she  became  Mrs.  C.  two  or 
three  years  ago. 

"  On  questioning  Mrs.  Piper,  which  I  did  by  referring  to 

books  first,  I  found  that  she  remembered  the  name  of B.  i 

when  I  mentioned  it,  and  connected  it  in  some  way  with  [a 
certain  book.  H.H.],  which  was  widely  circulated  some  years  ago. 
This  was  the  only  B.  that  she  seemed  to  know  anything 

about "  Yours  sincerely, 

(Signed)     "  R.  HODGSON." 

This  was  a  very  simple  cross-correspondence,  and  has  the 
strength  proper  to  simplicity.  There  are  many  famous  ones 
— famous  in  a  small  circle,  if  that's  not  too  Hibernian — 
which  are  not  so  simple,  which  in  fact  are  so  complex  as  to 
make  the  analysis  of  them  sometimes  very  tedious  reading, 
and  the  conclusions  occasionally  a  little  far-fetched.  But 
unquestionably  they  do  contain  stray  indications  of  something 
for  which  there  has  not  yet  been  found  any  other  hypothesis 
so  appropriate  as  that  of  an  additional  intelligence  behind 
those  of  the  heteromatists. 

Mr.  Piddington  says  (Pr.  XVIII,  294-6) : 

"  Under  the  '  Peregrinations  of  Nelly,'  reference  has  been 
made  to  two  instances  where  Nelly  has  claimed  to  have  influ- 
enced the  phenomena  of  two  other  mediums:  Mrs.  Piper  and 
'Miss  Rawson.'  In  one  case  the  claim  was  not  substantiated, 
in  the  other  there  was  an  undoubted  correspondence.  These  in- 
cidents were  treated  as  peregrinations  because  Nelly  professed  to 
have  visited  and  directly  controlled  the  mediums;  but  there  are 
a  few  other  instances  of  apparent  concordance  between  the 
trance-utterances  of  Mrs.  Thompson  and  those  of  Miss  Rawson 
and  the  automatic  writing  of  the  lady  whom  I  call  Mrs.  Scott,  of 
which  the  primd  facie  explanation  is  either  that  Mrs.  Thompson 
in  trance  becomes  aware  of  the  content  of  their  automatic  speech 
or  script,  or  that  one  and  the  same  control  has  conveyed  similar 
communications  through  two  different  mediums.  No  '  psychical 
excursion '  on  the  part  of  Nelly  seems  involved.  So  far  was  I 
(except  in  one  case)  from  suspecting  that  these  correspondences 
had  occurred,  that  it  was  more  or  less  by  accident  that  I  dis- 
covered them  in  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1903. ...  Miss  Raw- 
son  is  not  a  professional  medium,  nor  has  she  consented,  like 
Mrs.  Thompson,  to  submit  her  phenomena  to  any  strict  investi- 
gation. . . .  The  s6ances  were  held  in  the  dark 

"  Mrs.  Scott  is  a  member  of  the  Society  who  has  for  some 


764 


'Cross-Correspondences     [Bk.  II,  Pt  IY 


years  past  done  a  good  deal  of  automatic  writing,  and  between 
her  script  and  Mrs.  Verrall's  there  hare  been  some  interesting 

and  fairly  numerous  correspondences 

"  I  give  first  some  similar  trance-utterances  by  Miss  Eawson, 
who  was  then  in  the  south  of  France,  and  Mrs.  Thompson. 


"Miss  RAWSON. 

"  (1)  Dec.  22,  1900. 

"  A  control  speaking  for  and 

of  H.  Sidgwick: 
" '  He   knows   his   wife  is 
preparing  memorials.' 

"Jan.  11, 1901. 
"  (5".  S.  controlling  directly.) 
" '  Tell  my  friend  Myers  to 
tell  my  wife  not  to  put  in  the 
whole  of  the  last  chapters  of 
the  book  she  is  finishing.  She 
will  know  the  passages  she 
feels  doubtful  about.  Tell 
him  it  is  really  I  who  am 
here.' 

"  (2)  Jan.  23, 1901. 
"H.  8.  controlling  directly: 
" ( I  have  not  seen  my  dear 
friend  Myers  yet,  but  I  am 
more  thankful  than  I  can  say 
that  he  has  come  here.  The 
circle  above  has  been  wait- 
ing for  him,  and  will  with 
great  joy  welcome  him.' 


"  (3)  Jan.  26,  1901. 
"A   Control  speaking  of  F. 

W.  H.  Myers: 
" l  He  has  sent  a  message 
to  the  other  side  (Mrs.  T.) 

but  came  here  himself ' 

[Before  these  words  were 
spoken,  a  soi-disant  Myers 
control  had  communicated.] 


"MRS.  THOMPSON. 
"  (1)  Jan.  11,  1901. 
"Mr.  D.  control  speaking  of 

H.  Sidgwick: 

"  'He  says :  "Eleanor  might 
remember,   because   she."  . . . 
He . . .  Eleanor's   writing  his 
Life.     He  doesn't  want  her 
to  make  him  "  a  glorious  per- 
sonage."   You're  to  give  her 
that  message.    He  said :  "  El- 
eanor has  gone  abroad  to  pre- 
pare my  Life." ' 
"Before  the  Mr.  D.  control 
spoke,  a  control  that  pur- 
ported to  be  Henry  Sidg- 
wick had  appeared  for  the 
first  time. 

"  (2)  Jan.  21,  1901. 
" H.  S.  controlling  directly: 
"'He's    (i.e.,   F.    W.    H. 
Myers)   not  with  me.     He's 
not  within  range  at  all.' 
"  Written  during  seance:  H. 

8.  script: 

"'I  don't  think  Myers  is 
here,  or  we  should  see  him 
before  the  8th,  as  E.  G.  told 
me  [Mr.  D.]  was  waiting  for 

him ' 

"  (3)  Jan.  29,  1901. 

" Nelly:— 'I   haven't 

seen  Mr.  Myers.     I  haven't, 

really.      Professor    Sidgwick 

says  he  has  seen  him:  but  I 

haven't.' 

"  H.  S.  script,  written  Jan. 

30,  1901 : 

" ' Myers     says     cer- 
tainly go.    Myers  says  better 
go,  go  out  of  town.    Not  now, 
not  now,  the  day  not  here. 
"'H.  S.  [scrawl]. 
"  <  F.  W.  H.  MYERS.'  " 


Ch.  XLVII]    Mrs.  Thompson  and  Mrs.  Scott  765 

Mr.  Piddington  devotes  several  pages  to  discussing  this 
cross-correspondence,  from  which  I  have  omitted  several  para- 
graphs. They  are  well  worth  the  attention  of  the  special 
student,  but,  like  almost  all  that  relates  to  cross-correspond- 
ence (as  I  shall  farther  illustrate  later),  would  be  too  much 
of  a  tax  on  the  patience  of  the  general  reader — as  they  cer- 
tainly are  on  mine. 

Here  is  a  simple  one  with  a  special  point  of  interest  at  the 
end  (Pr.  XVIII,  302-4) : 

Sitting  of  January  8th,  1901. 

"  Present :  Mrs.  Scott. 

"  The  following  was  spoken  by  Nelly  after  the  removal  of  the 
screen  which  had  previously  concealed  the  sitter. 

" '  Geoffrey  [Scott.  H.H.]  says  he  wrote  through  his  mother's 
hand,  and  said  he'd  rather  not  come  when  you're  here,  Mr.  Pid- 
dington. Mrs.  Scott  wouldn't  tell  you  that ;  she  wouldn't  like  to. 
(To  Mrs.  Scott)  Mr.  Piddington  will  excuse  you ' " 

Sitting  of  January  llth,  1901.    Sitters:  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Percival. 

"  [Nelly.  H.H.] :  '  Mr.  Gurney  did  write  a  long  message.  Mrs. 
Scott  received  a  long  message  for  you  from  Mr.  Gurney ' 

"  On  January  12th,  1901,  I  sent  a  copy  of  these  words  to  Mrs. 
Scott,  and  her  reply,  dated  January  12th  [1901],  was  as  follows : — 

"  ' Some  time  ago  I  had  a  very  urgent  message  from  both 

Mr.  Gurney  and  my  son,  telling  me  the  latter  could  not  "  sit " 
[i.e.,  control  at  a  sitting]  with  you ;  but  I  felt  it  best  to  disregard 
it.  I  am  glad  I  did,  for  it  is  interesting  that  it  should  have  been 
verified  in  this  way.' 

"  Mrs.  Scott  wrote  to  me  on  July  17th,  1903,  as  follows : 

" ' On  the  day  I  received  the  message  I  went  out  hunt- 
ing, starting  early,  probably  about  9  A.M.,  and  returning  about 
3.45. l  I  changed  my  habit  and  came  down  rather  tired  to  the 
drawing-room,  where  I  sat  down  by  the  fire  with  a  book  to  wait 
for  tea.  I  had  a  strong  impulse  to  write  almost  directly,  and  I 
took  a  scrap  of  paper  and  tried  the  experiment  without  leaving 
my  chair.  The  result  was  the  message  I  sent  you.' 

"  [NOTE. — 1 1  venture  to  direct  the  attention  of  a  certain  Con- 
tinental school  of  psycho-physiologists  to  the  fact  that  we  pro- 
duce here  in  England  a  fox-hunting  type  of  automatic  writer. 
Fox-hunting  must  in  future,  I  suppose,  be  added  to  their  lengthy 
list  of  '  notes '  of  degeneracy.]  " 

Mrs.  Verrall,  in  her  account  of  her  own  script  which  we 
have  followed  in  Pr.  XX,  introduces  the  subject  of  cross- 
correspondence  at  p.  205.  She  leaves  her  experiences — largely 


766"  'Cross-Correspondences     [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

experimental — with  "Mrs.  Holland"  for  separate  treatment, 
and  in  the  paper  now  under  discussion  confines  herself  to  more 
spontaneous  experiences  with  Mrs.  Archdale,  Mrs.  Thompson, 
Mrs.  Piper,  and  Mrs.  Forbes.  The  evidence  for  cross-corre- 
spondence is  good,  but  to  anybody  but  the  close  student — a 
closer  one,  I  confess,  than  I  am  in  this  immediate  connection 
— the  accounts  are  uninteresting  and  even  tedious.  I  hope  my 
selections  and  summaries  will  not  put  you  to  sleep  propor- 
tionally as  often  as  the  originals  did  me,  and  if  you  are  read- 
ing merely  for  general  results,  without  contemplating  close 
study,  I  advise  you  to  skip  what  is  left  of  the  topic  after  your 
first  nap. 

Among  the  most  interesting  samples  are  probably  the  fol- 
lowing. Mrs.  Verrall  says  (Pr.  XX,  222-4)  : 

"  On  August  28th,  1901,  the  script  began :  '  Signa  sigillo. 
Conifera  arbos  [arbor?  H.H.]  in  horto  iam  insita  omina  sibimet 
ostendit.'  [Sign  with  the  seal.  The  fir  tree  that  has  already  been 
planted  in  the  garden  gives  its  own  portent.]  The  script  was 
signed  with  a  scrawl  and  three  drawings  representing  a  sword, 

a  suspended  bugle  and  a  pair  of  scissors A  suspended  bugle 

surmounted  by  a  crown  is  the  badge  of  the  regiment  to  which 
Talbot  Forbes  [a  deceased  son  of  Mrs.  Forbes.  H.H.]  belonged. 
[Of  this  Mrs.  Verrall  knew  nothing.  H.H.]  Mrs.  Forbes  has  in 
her  garden  four  or  five  small  fir-trees  grown  from  seed  sent  to 
her  from  abroad  by  her  son;  these  are  called  by  her  Talbot's 
trees.  This  fact  was  entirely  unknown  to  me.  On  August  28th 
Mrs.  Forbes'  script  contained  the  statement,  purporting  to  come 
from  her  son,  that  he  was  looking  for  a  '  sensitive '  who  wrote 
automatically,  in  order  that  he  might  obtain  corroboration  for 
her  own  writing,  and  it  concluded  with  the  remark  that  he  must 
now  leave  her  in  order  to  join  E.  G.  [Edmund  Gurney  ?]  in  con- 
trolling the  sensitive.  The  hour  of  her  writing  on  August  28th 
does  not  appear,  but  as  she  usually  writes  early  in  the  day  and 
as  mine  of  the  same  date  was  at  10.30  P.M.,  it  is  probable  that 
hers  preceded  mine 

"  [NOTE. — I  knew  nothing  at  the  time  when  my  script  was 
produced  of  the  surroundings  or  tastes  of  Mrs.  Forbes.  It  was 
only  in  April,  1902,  that  I  found  her  garden  was  full  of  associa- 
tions with  her  son.]  " 

This  approaches  very  near  to  a  cross-correspondence.  Mrs. 
Forbes'  control  wrote,  April  10,  1903  (Pr.  XX,  254) : 

" '  Will  you  be  so  good  as  to  write — to  arrive  to-morrow — to  tell 
Mrs.  Verrall  our  letter  must  be  read  with  one  word  corrected 
which  means  more.  E.  G. . . .  A  grower  of  flowers  one  year  will 


Ch.  XLVII]    Mrs.  Verrall  and  Mrs.  Forles  767 

be  sower  of  seed — Send  this  message.  Edmund  writes  for  H.  to 
ask  you  to  say  it  will  be  far  less  difficult  to  read  the  sense  if  the 

younger  Verrall  writes  with  Planchette Mrs.  Verrall  can  be 

sure  of  this — Sit  on  Sunday — Mother,  daughter  yourself.'  On 
April  llth : '  Our  word  was  not  Verrall — Helen  Verrall  she  would 
see  with — would  she  sit.' " 

Mrs.  Verrall  wrote  (Pr.  XX,  254)  : 

"  I  read  the  above  script  to  my  daughter,  and  she  at  once  said 
that  the  message  could  be  explained  by  a  fact  in  her  recent  ex- 
perience. She  had  been  staying  from  March  25th  to  April  2nd 
with  a  friend  who  is  a  professional  gardener,  and  during  her 
visit  there  was  much  discussion  over  a  suggestion  of  her  friend's 
new  head  man  that  certain  plants  should  be  grown  from  seed 
which  hitherto  had  been  raised  from  cuttings.  The  new  man 
was  particularly  skilled  in  raising  plants  from  seed.  My  daugh- 
ter, who  is  very  familiar  with  the  methods  of  her  gardener 
friend,  was  much  interested  in  the  discussion;  and  she  at  once 
recognized  a  reference  to  this  subject  in  the  phrase  '  a  grower 
of  flowers  one  year  will  be  sower  of  seed.' 

"  The  above  facts  were  entirely  unknown  to  me,  and  Mrs. 
Forbes  had  no  knowledge  of  my  daughter's  movements  or  that 
she  had  any  horticultural  friend." 

The  following  (Pr.  XX,  260)  had  other  matter  with  it 
which  led  Mrs.  Verrall  to  say,  with  her  extreme  candor: 
"  This  is  too  vague  to  be  useful."  To  me  it  seemed  very 
different. 

"  On  August  18th,  1903,  Mrs.  Forbes  had  two  messages  for  me 
at  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  morning:  10  A.M.,  '  Great  sym- 
pathy for  our  friends. . . .  Death ' 

"  A  friend  of  mine,  unknown  to  Mrs.  Forbes,  was  very  seri- 
ously ill  at  the  time  and  died  ten  days  later." 

Here  is  a  plain  cross-correspondence;  the  particulars  are 
given  in  Pr.  XX,  264-6,  and  summed  up  by  Mrs.  Verrall  thus : 

"  It  will  be  seen  that  Mrs.  Forbes'  script  of  January  5th  began 
a  message  of  consolation  to  her,  which  was  left  incomplete;  it 
suggested  that  I  had  some  answer  to  send,  and  that  unless  I 
were  communicated  with  something  would  be  lost.  Mrs.  Forbes 
did  not  communicate  with  me  at  once,  and  on  January  12th  her 
script  plainly  told  her  to  ask  for  a  particular  piece  of  my  script. 
The  piece  of  my  script  so  asked  for  contained  a  remark  about 
consolation  for  sorrow,  unintelligible  to  me,  but  explained,  as 
promised  in  my  script,  seven  days  after  its  reception." 

Here  is  some  more:  Miss  Johnson  says  (Pr.  XXI,  222) : 


768  Cross-Correspondences     [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

"  There  is  a  certain  resemblance  between  the  descriptions  of 
their  own  attitude  given  by  the  controls  through  both  sensitives. 
The  Verrall- Myers  speaks  (Dec.  29th,  1903)  of  the  voice  of  one 
crying  in  the  wilderness ;  the  Holland-Myers  (Jan  5th,  1904)  of 
words  said,  shouted,  sung  to  the  wind,  and  again  (on  Jan.  12th, 
1904),  of  one  wailing  as  the  wind  wails,  wordless  and  unheeded. 
The  Holland- Myers  (Jan.  6th,  1904)  refers  to  the  missionary 
spirit  longing  to  speak  to  the  souls  in  prison ;  the  Verrall-Myers, 
in  a  very  obscure  passage  (Feb.  2nd,  1904),  to  slaves  in  prison, 
and  prodigies  done  by  the  pure  presumably  on  their  behalf. 

"  Further,  the  Verrall-Myers  remarks  (Dec.  27, 1903) :  '  Comes 
the  message,  but  is  not  understanded  of  any ' ;  and  the  Holland- 
Myers  (on  Jan.  25th,  1904)  expresses  his  bitter  disappointment 
that  the  message,  on  which  apparently  so  much  effort  had  been 
spent,  had  not  made  any  real  impression  on  his  friends. 

"  This  is  strikingly  appropriate,  since,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it 
was  not  until  October,  1905,  that  any  correspondence  was  dis- 
covered between  the  two  series  of  scripts,  while  the  minor  re- 
semblances were  not  observed  till  I  was  preparing  this  report  for 
publication." 

Miss  Johnson  thus  admirably  expresses  a  fundamental  dif- 
ficulty regarding  all  alleged  communication  from  the  dead, 
the  first  point  of  which  I  have  already  made  (Pr.  XXI, 
376-7)  : 

"  Events  in  the  present  are  either  known  to  some  living  person, 
in  which  case  we  could  not  exclude  his  telepathic  agency;  or 
they  are  unknown  to  any  living  person,  in  which  case  it  would  be 
difficult  or  impossible  to  prove  that  they  had  occurred 

"  Now,  granted  the  possibility  of  communication,  it  may  be 
supposed  that  within  the  last  few  years  there  have  been  trying  to 
communicate  with  us  a  certain  group  of  persons  who  are  suffi- 
ciently well  instructed  to  know  all  the  objections  that  reasonable 
skeptics  have  urged  against  the  previous  evidence,  and  sufficiently 
intelligent  to  realize  to  the  full  all  the  force  of  these  objections. 
It  may  be  supposed  that  these  persons  have  invented  a  new  plan, 
— the  plan  of  cross-correspondences, — to  meet  the  skeptics'  ob- 
jections. There  is  no  doubt  that  the  cross-correspondences  are  a 
characteristic  element  in  the  scripts  that  we  have  been  collecting 
in  the  last  few  years, — the  scripts  of  Mrs.  Verrall,  Mrs.  Forbes, 
Mrs.  Holland,  and,  still  more  recently,  Mrs.  Piper.  And  the  im- 
portant point  is  that  the  element  is  a  new  one.  We  have  reason 
to  believe,  as  I  have  shown  above,  that  the  idea  of  making  a  state- 
ment in  one  script  complementary  of  a  statement  in  another  had 
not  occurred  to  Mr.  Myers  in  his  life-time,  for  there  is  no  refer- 
ence to  it  in  any  of  his  written  utterances  on  the  subject  that  I 
have  been  able  to  discover.  Also,  it  seems  to  me  almost  certain 


Ch.  XLVII]      Argument  by  Miss  Johnson  769 

that  if  he  had  thought  of  it  during  his  life-time,  I  should  have 
heard  of  it  while  helping  him  in  the  publication  of  Human  Per- 
sonality, or  he  would  have  mentioned  it  to  some  of  his  friends  and 
colleagues  in  the  S.  P.  R.  Neither  did  those  who  have  been  inves- 
tigating automatic  script  since  his  death  invent  this  plan,  if  plan 
it  be.  It  was  not  the  automatists  that  detected  it,  but  a  student  of 
the  scripts ;  it  has  every  appearance  of  being  an  element  imported 
from  outside;  it  suggests  an  independent  invention,  an  active 
intelligence  constantly  at  work  in  the  present,  not  a  mere  echo 
</r  remnant  of  individualities  of  the  past." 

Miss  Johnson  makes  a  good  argument  for  cross-correspond- 
ences in  the  following  considerations,  which  she  states  some- 
what more  at  length.  The  heteromatists  wished  to  guard 
against  thought-transference  and  identical  knowledge  of  ex- 
ceptional facts  between  themselves.  In  the  script  there  are 
many  passages  from  the  control  expressing  this  desideratum. 
These  passages  are  thickest  in  connection  with  the  passages 
indicating  cross-correspondence.  Now  as  these  passages  could 
not  be  distinguished  by  the  heteromatists  themselves  before 
they  were  compared,  the  heteromatists  could  not  have  con- 
centrated around  them  the  cautionary  matter  regarding  tele- 
pathy, etc.  That  concentration  of  the  cautionary  matter  is 
too  marked  to  have  been  placed  there  by  chance ;  it  could  not 
have  been  placed  there  by  the  heteromatists,  as  they  did  not 
at  the  time  know  what  the  evidential  passages  were:  so  it 
must  have  been  placed  there  by  intelligence  outside  of  the 
heteromatists,  and  the  only  such  intelligence  within  reach  or 
conjecture  was  that  of  the  controls. 

In  the  following  the  stage  was  set  for  an  entirely  new  drama. 
As  in  quoting  Miss  Johnson,  I  will  prefix  Mr.  Piddington's 
initial  to  his  comments.  0.  J.  L.  is  Sir  Oliver  Lodge ;  P.  is 
Mr.  Piddington. 

Sitting  with  Mrs.  Piper,  November  15.  1906.     (Pr.XXII,31f.) 

"  (Present :  O.  J.  L.  and  Lady  Lodge.) 

"  (Hodgson  communicating.)  '  I  am  Hodgson/  O.  J.  L. : 
'  Glad  to  see  you  at  last.'  H. :  '  Hello  Lodge.  I  am  not  dead  as 
some  might  suppose.  I  am  very  much  alive.'  [This  is  Hodgson 

to  the  life.  H.H.]  O.  J.  L. : '  Good,  I  expect  so '  H. :  '  Speak 

to  me.'  O.  J.  L. :  '  Are  you  interested  in  the  cross-correspond- 
ence? Could  you  send  something  to  other  communicators?' 
H. :  '  I  am  very,  and  think  it  the  very  best  thing.'  O.  J.  L. : 
'  Could  you  send  one  now  to  one  of  the  mediums  ? '  H. :  '  I  will 


770  Cross-Correspondences     [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

go  to  Mrs.  Holland.'  [Dr.  Hodgson  never  personally  knew  any- 
thing about  Mrs.  Holland;  but  J.  G.  P.  in  the  spring  of  1906 
had  mentioned  her  name  to  the  Piper-Hodgson  more  than  once 
at  sittings  in  Boston.]  O.  J.  L. :  '  What  will  you  send  ? '  H. : 
1  St.  Paul.'  O.  J.  L. :  '  That  is  a  good  idea.'  H.  '  St.  Paul.  I 

will  give  it  to  her  at  once '  (After  an  interval.)  O.  J.  L. : 

'  Do  you  remember  what  you  were  going  to  say  to  Mrs.  Holland  ? ' 
H. :  '  St.  Paul.'  O.  J.  L. :  '  Yes,  quite  right.'  H. :  '  I  will  go  at 
once.' 

"  [P.]  '  St.  Paul '  did  not  appear  in  Mrs.  Holland's  script. 
There  are,  however,  in  the  script  of  Miss  Verrall  two  passages 
worth  considering  in  this  connection. . . .  The  script  of  Jan.  12 
opens  with  a  sentence  in  Latin,  and  then  totally  unconnected 
with  it  follow  these  words :  '  the  name  is  not  right  robbing  Peter 

to  pay  Paul?  sanctus  nomine  quod  efficit  nil  continens 

petatur  subveniet.'  The  script  of  Feb.  26  reads  as  follows: 
'. . .  you  have  not  understood  about  Paul  ask  Lodge,  quibus 
eruditis  advocatis  rem  explicabis  non  nisi  ad  unam  normam 
refers  hoc  satis  alia  vana ' 

"  The  Latin  words  in  the  script  of  Jan.  12  I  interpret  thus : — 
'  Holy  in  name  (i.e.,  with  the  title  of  saint)  what  she  (or,  he)  is 
doing  is  of  no  use  (i.e.,  by  itself).  Let  the  point  (continens)  be 
looked  for ;  it  will  help.'  The  Latin  words  of  Feb.  26  I  translate : 
— '  By  calling  to  your  aid  what  learned  men  will  you  explain  the 
matter?  (You  will  not  explain  it)  unless  you  refer  it  to  one 
standard.  This  is  enough;  more  is  useless.' 

"  [NOTE. — Or,  if  '  quibus '  is  treated  as  a  relative  instead  of 
as  an  interrogative,  the  words  would  mean:  'when  you  have 
called  these  learned  persons  to  your  aid.'] 

"If  we  take  these  two  passages  to  refer  to  the  experiment 
arranged  on  Nov.  15,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  name  Paul  is  given; 
and  that  '  Lodge '  is  correctly  indicated  as  the  person  to  explain 
about  the  name  Paul.  Miss  Verrall  never  did  apply  to  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge  as  directed;  and  it  was  not  until  September,  1907,  that 
the  interpretation  given  above  struck  me. 

"  I  have  said  that  '  St.  Paul '  did  not  appear  in  Mrs.  Holland's 
script,  but  her  script  of  Dec.  31,  1906,  suggests  an  approach  to 
the  name  of  St.  Paul,  and  also  suggests  an  explanation  of  the 
words  in  Miss  Verrall's  script  of  Jan.  12,  '  the  name  is  not  right 
robbing  Peter  to  pay — Paul.'  I  transcribe  the  first  half  only  of 
this  script  of  Dec.  31, 1906,  the  second  half  having  no  connection 
with  the  first: 

"  II  Peter  I,  15.  ['  Moreover  I  will  endeavor  that  ye  may  be 
able  after  my  decease  to  have  these  things  always  in  remem- 
brance.'] '  This  witness  is  true ' —  It  is  now  time  that  the 
shadow  should  be  lifted  from  your  spirit.  '  Let  patience  have  her 
perfect  work  ' —  '  This  is  a  faithful  saying ' — 

"  [P.]  This  witness  etc.  is  not,  I  believe,  a  textual  quotation, 
but  is  reminiscent  of  several  passages  in  the  writings  of  St. 


Ch.  XLVII]      The  St.  Paul  Correspondences  771 

John.  Let  patience  etc.  is  a  quotation  from  the  Epistle  of  St. 
James.  This  is  a  faithful  saying  occurs  at  least  three  times  in 

St.  Paul's  Epistles If  we  suppose  that  the  scribe  was  aiming 

at  getting  '  St.  Paul '  expressed,  it  looks  as  if  he  felt  his  way 
towards  the  name  or  notion  of  St.  Paul  by  quoting  first  from 
St.  Peter,  next  from  St.  John,  then  from  St.  James  and  finally 
from  St.  Paul.  I  do  not  mean  that  I  think  the  process  was  thus 
deliberately  involved,  but  that  the  scribe  (whoever  or  whatever 
that  may  be)  did  the  best  he  could.  A  long  way  round  may  per- 
haps be  the  only  way  there.  I  further  suggest  that  the  scribe 
having  got  so  far  could  not  proceed  to  get  the  name  '  St.  Paul ' 
written,  and  so  had  to  content  himself  with  a  quotation  from 
his  writings. 

"  Now,  in  the  light  of  this  interpretation,  the  words  in  Miss 
Verrall's  script  of  January  12,  '  the  name  is  not  right  robbing 
Peter  to  pay — Paul/  are  suggestive." 

"  [P.]  The  words  nisi  ad  unam  normam  refers  in  Miss  Ver- 
rall's script  of  Feb.  26  may,  perhaps,  have  been  intended  to  mean 
that  unless  there  was  one  person  in  touch  with  all  the  automatists 
concerned  in  these  experiments,  the  point  would  be  missed  in 
many  instances;  or  in  other  words,  that  a  central  exchange  was 
necessary.  In  this  case  I  was,  so  to  speak,  at  the  central  office, 
but  though  I  was  receiving  Miss  Verrall's  script,  and  though  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge  sent  me  a  copy  of  his  record  of  the  sitting  of  Nov. 
15, 1  was  not  receiving  a  copy  of  Mrs.  Holland's  script ;  and  until 
I  did  receive  a  copy  of  it  the  significance  of  Miss  Verrall's  scripts 
of  Jan.  12  and  Feb.  26  naturally  escaped  me.  If  then  the  words 
nisi  ad  unam  normam  refers  can  bear  such  an  interpretation  as  I 
have  sought  to  place  on  them,  they  were  neither  otiose  nor  mere 
padding. 

"  Most  readers  who  have  had  the  patience  to  follow  me  so  far 
will,  I  fear,  at  this  point  form  the  opinion  that  all  this  may  be 
more  or  less  ingenious  rubbish,  but  that  it  is  certainly  rubbish. 
Had  our  experiments  produced  no  coincidences  less  problematical 
than  this  one,  I  should  heartily  agree ;  but  there  have  been  cor- 
respondences of  the  most  definite  character,  and  not  only  that, 
but  in  the  production  of  them  there  is  evidence  both  of  intelli- 
gent direction  and  ingenuity.  I  care  not  to  whom  that  intelli- 
gence be  attributed ;  but  that  intelligence  and  acute  intelligence 
lie  behind  the  phenomena  I  stoutly  maintain.  And  if  this  be 
once  admitted  no  excuse  need  be  offered  for  trying  to  place  upon 
them  interpretations  which  otherwise  would  be  over-subtle." 

The  illustration  just  given,  compared  with  the  average  of 
those  in  Mr.  Piddington's  report,  is  as  simple  as  the  alphabet 
compared  with  Browning's  Sordello.  I  presume  that  the 
normal  reader  may  be  well  content  to  have  me  refer  the 
exceptional  reader  for  farther  information  to  the  original 


772  Cross-Correspondences     [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

reports.  Pr.  XXII,  like  Pr.  XX,  is  entirely  devoted  to  an 
examination  of  cross-correspondences,  and  large  parts  of  neigh- 
boring volumes  are  devoted  to  discussion  of  them.  To  any- 
body at  all  acquainted  with  the  volumes,  these  facts  will  indi- 
cate the  almost  dominating  interest  that  the  subject  has  had 
during  the  last  few  years  for  the  active  members  of  the 
Society.  Probably  there  is  nothing  else  in  the  Society's  pub- 
lications, and  there  are  not  many  things  anywhere,  showing 
as  devoted  and  patient  study  (and,  it  may  be  added,  as  wide, 
accurate,  and  graceful  scholarship)  as  the  three  reports  of 
Mrs.  Verrall,  Miss  Johnson,  and  Mr.  Piddington  and  Mrs. 
Sidgwick.  But  the  very  devotion  and  patience  they  called 
for  involved  a  large  part  of  them  being,  as  before  intimated, 
very  dreary  reading  for  anybody  but  the  initiate  and  the 
enthusiast.  Even  while  presuming  to  write  on  the  general 
subject,  I  am  shameless  enough  to  confess  that  I  have  not 
thought  it  worth  while  for  my  purposes  to  master  all  the 
details  of  this  part  of  it.  And  still  less  do  I  think  it  worth 
while  to  attempt  to  give  my  readers  an  adequate  idea  of  its 
intricacies.  A  typical  case  would  drive  the  average  reader  to 
cold  bandages  for  the  head  and  a  hot  bath  for  the  feet,  and 
there  is  one — rather  more  than  typical — in  which  Mr.  Pid- 
dington finds  evidence  of  cross-correspondence  between  no 
less  than  seven  people,  the  performance  of  any  one  of  whom 
meant  nothing  to  the  performer  or  anybody  else  except  in 
connection  with  one  or  more  of  the  others,  the  inference 
being,  of  course,  that  a  single  intelligence  from  outside  con- 
trolled them  all. 

As  perhaps  already  intimated,  the  effect  on  me  of  these 
terribly  labored  topics  (how  labored,  I  wish  the  reader  would 
learn  for  "  thonself  "  through  the  Proceedings)  is  that  they 
are  far  more  open  to  the  telepathic  and  teloteropathic  ex- 
planation than  the  simple  and  wonderfully  vraisemblant  and 
dramatic  utterances  of  innumerable  alleged  controls,  princi- 
pally through  Mrs.  Piper  and  Mrs.  Thompson,  and  entirely 
independently  of  any  experiments  by  sitters  for  cross-corre- 
spondence, or  anything  else  but  natural  conversation. 

Podmore's  change  of  attitude  in  the  last  book  before  his 
most  regrettable  death,  was  perhaps  most  clearly  marked  in  his 
attitude  regarding  cross-correspondences.  I  refer  you  to  the 


Ch.  XLVII]  Podmore's  Concessions.  Thanksgiving  Day  773 

chapters  on  them  and  "  The  Most  Recent  Evidence  "  in  The 
Newer  Spiritualism,  as  a  better  summary  than  I  would  be  apt 
to  give,  even  had  I  the  space.  He  had  the  patience  and 
training  to  go  into  them  more  thoroughly  than  I  have,  and 
does  his  best  to  explode  them.  Nevertheless,  he  says  (Newer 
Spiritualism,  p.  225)  : 

"  We  are  forced  to  remember  at  every  step  that  we  have  to 
deal  with  an  actor  whose  mimicry  is  as  subtle  as  it  is  un- 
scrupulous. Again,  we  cannot  base  our  faith  on  the  relation  of 
intimate  details  known  to  no  one  but  ourselves  and  the  dead, 
for  we  can  place  no  certain  limits  on  the  mysterious  agency  of 
telepathy.  The  only  evidence  that  can  satisfy  us  of  the  survival 
of  an  active  and  individual  intelligence  is  evidence  of  the  pres- 
ent activity  of  such  an  intelligence.  Within  the  last  few  years 
some  grounds  have  appeared  for  hoping  that  traces  of  such  in- 
telligent action  had  been  f  ound." 

The  reading  of  the  investigations  in  Pr.  XX,  XXI,  XXII, 
and  XXIV  is  in  itself  a  small  classical  education.  But  the 
limits  do  not  admit  more  of  it  here.  I  cannot  close,  however, 
without  giving  one  less  classical  piece  of  edification  from  one 
of  Mrs.  VerralPs  reports  of  Mrs.  Piper  (Pr.  XXIV,  79) : 

"  There  are . . .  cases . . .  where  the  normal  knowledge  of  Mrs. 
Piper  seems  to  have  entered  into  the  statements  of  the  trance- 
personalities.  Thus  on  April  6th  Mr.  Dorr  asked  the  controls, 
both  Hodgson  and  Myers  being  present:  'Do  you  understand 
what  Pilgrim  Fathers  means  ? '  To  this  came  the  amazing  an- 
swer :  '  Something  about  birds  or  turkeys.'  The  explanation 
occurred  later  to  Mr.  Dorr,  and  was  by  him  explained  to  the 
trance-personalities  on  April  22nd :  '  I  have  just  discovered  the 
association  in  R.  H.'s  mind  between  turkeys  and  pilgrims,  that 
made  the  Light  write  the  one  when  I  spoke  of  the  other — Pilgrim 
Fathers,  Fast  Day,  Thanksgiving  and  Turkey/  " 


CHAPTER  XLVIII 
THE  PIPER-MYERS  AND  THE  CLASSICS 

AFTER  all  the  talk  in  May  and  June,  1907  (Pr.  XXIII), 

about  the  necessity  of  Myers  getting  farther  away  from 
earthly  associations,  he  had  a  very  vigorous  campaign  well 
on  into  1909,  with  Mr.  George  B.  Dorr  of  Boston,  one  of  the 
vice-presidents  of  the  S.  P.  R.  It  occurred  to  Mr.  Dorr  to  test 
the  Piper-Myers'  knowledge  of  classical  literature.  Mr.  Dorr 
knew  no  more  of  it  than  the  average  Harvard  man,  possibly 
less,  as  he  had  turned  from  the  classics  to  other  subjects  early 
in  his  course,  and  Mrs.  Piper  certainly  knew  no  more  than 
Mr.  Dorr  did. 

The  result  of  the  experiment  proved,  or  at  least  was  thought 
by  Mrs.  Verrall  and  other  good  judges  to  prove,  that  though 
the  Piper-Myers  never  spoke  in  Latin  and  Greek,  as  the 
Verrall-Myers  often  did,  it  was  really  familiar  with  the  whole 
range  of  classical  literature. 

Many  cross-correspondences  also  were  developed,  especially 
with  Mrs.  Verrall's  script. 

The  evidence  for  all  this,  as  edited  by  Mr.  Piddington  and 
others,  takes  up  over  two  hundred  and  sixty  pages  in  Pr. 
Part  LX,  Vol.  XXIV,  and  is  most  of  it  as  tough  reading  as 
one  could  desire.  I  give  probably  enough  to  more  than  meet 
(I  intend  that  split  infinitive,  and  occasional  others,  if  you 
please)  the  requirements  of  the  reader  who  is  not  a  specialist, 
and  a  devoted  one  at  that. 

I  give  a  faint  indication  of  the  famous  (if  anything  can 
be  famous  in  a  small  circle)  Lethe  incident,  which  the  ever 
cautious  Podmore  (The  Newer  Spiritualism,  p.  255),  regards 
as  the  "  one  case  .  .  .  which  may  be  held  to  furnish  perhaps 
the  clearest  and  most  direct  evidence  yet  obtained  for  the 
spiritualistic  hypothesis  " ;  but  he  adds :  "  Another  case,  in 
which  the  coincidences  are  equally  striking,  may  be  set  against 
this  as  pointing,  with  perhaps  even  greater  emphasis,  to  a 

774 


Ch.  XLVIII]  The  Lethe  Incident  775 

naturalistic  interpretation  of  the  whole  series  of  cross-cor- 
respondences/' 

On  March  23,  1908,  Mr.  Dorr,  at  a  sitting  with  Mrs.  Piper 
in  Boston,  asked  the  Myers  control :  "  What  does  the  word 
Lethe  suggest  to  you?  "  As  Mr.  Piddington  says  (Pr.  XXIV, 
86): 

"  The  answers  given  were  in  part,  though  not  by  any  means, 
as  Mr.  Dorr  supposed,  wholly  confused;  and  Mr.  Dorr,  who  evi- 
dently thought  that  the  frequent  change  of  subject  had  by  put- 
ting an  undue  strain  on  the  attention  of  the  trance-personalities 
conduced  to  the  confusion,  apologized  for  having  sprung  a  new 

question  upon  Myers  at  the  end  of  a  fatiguing  sitting The 

various  references  to  the  question  about  Lethe  which  were  made 
at  Mr.  Dorr's  sittings,  to  the  reader,  unless  he  should  happen  to 
hit  on  the  clue  to  the  puzzle  . . .  will  doubtless  seem  to  be  little  if 
any  better  than  a  farrago  of  nonsense.  It  may,  therefore,  help 
him  to  work  his  way  through  them  without  too  much  impatience, 
if  I  first  assure  him  that  they  contain  an  unusually  complete 
and  relevant,  though  very  far  from  obvious,  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion put  by  Mr.  Dorr." 

I  give  an  extract  from  the  report  of  the  sittings  (Pr. 
XXIV,  87f.),  to  show  the  sort  of  material  Mr.  Piddington 
had  to  search.  The  report  gives  only  the  initials  of  the  sitter, 
Mr.  Dorr,  not  those  of  the  communicator — or  control.  But 
clearness  seems  promoted  by  giving  them,  so  I  venture  to 
attempt  it. 

"  G.  B.  D. : '  Now  shall  I  ask  you  a  question  ?  What  does  the 
word  "  Lethe  "  suggest  to  you  ? '  (Myers  communicating)  '  Leaf- 
let? '  G.  B.  D. :  '  No,  "  Lethe." '  (G.  B.  D.  spells  word.)  M. : 
'Lethe.  Do  you  refer  to  one  of  my  poems,  Lethe? '  (A  word 
was  then  written,  which  G.  B.  D.  could  not  decipher  with  cer- 
tainty, but  which  he  took  to  be  "  Iliad.")  G.  B.  D. :  '  No,  it  does 
not  refer  especially  to  anything  in  the  Iliad,  but  it  belongs  to  the 
old  mythology.'  M. :  '  Yes,  yes,  ah  yes.  I  was  thinking  about 
my  biography — you  referred  to  biography — auto — you  confused 
me  a  little.'  [G.  B.  D.  had  just  before  asked  two  questions  based 
on  two  different  passages  in  the  autobiographical  portions  of 
F.  W.  H.  Myers's  Fragments  of  Prose  and  Poetry.  The  second 
question  might  have  been  partially  answered  by  a  reference  to 
Homer's  Odyssey.  Note  by  J.  0.  P.]  G.  B.  D. :  '  Yes,  it  was  a 
sudden  break.  I  had  not  meant  to  bring  the  autobiography  up 
just  then.'  M.:  'Winds.'  G.  B.  D.:  'Do  not  hurry  on  it.  See 
if  the  sound  recalls  anything  to  you,  and  whether  you  can  tell  me 
where  it  was — '  M.  (Interrupting)  :  '  Greece.'  G.  B.  D. :  '  I  will 


776       The  ^Piper-Myers  and  the  Classics    [Bk.  II,  Pt  IV 

give  you  a  clue.    It  was  in  the  same  region  with  the  Styx.'    M. : 

'  Olympus.    Greece    Troy   and  all.    Winds  were  all and 

appear  and to  destroy  and  he  saved  them  by  taking  them 

across  the  river.'  G.  B.  D. :  '  These  last  words  are  not  clear  to 
me.'  M. : '  he  saves  them  by  taking  them  across  River — Athens — 
It  is  all  clear.  Do  you  remember  Cave?'  G.  B.  D. :  'I  think 
you  are  confused  about  this.  I  ought  to  have  waited  until  an- 
other day  to  bring  it  up,  when  the  Light  was  fresh.  It  was  a 
water,  not  a  wind,  and  it  was  in  Hades,  where  the  Styx  was  and 
the  Elysian  fields.  Do  you  recall  it  now  ? '  M. :  '  Lethe.  Shore 
— of  course  I  do.  Lethe  Hades  beautiful  river — Lethe.  Un- 
derground.—  What  is  the  matter  that  I  do  not  hear  better  ?  Is 
it  lack  of  Light  ?  [i.e.,  strength  or  lucidity  in  the  medium.  H.H.] 

I  think  it  is I  think  that  is  what  is  the  trouble,  what  makes  it 

difficult.'  (The  script  has  now  become  obscure  and  faint.) 
G.  B.  D. : '  Anything  more  that  comes  to  you,  say  in  the  waking- 
stage.'  [As  Mrs.  Piper  comes  out  of  trance,  she  utters  more  or 
less  coherent  words  referring  to  matters  in  the  trance.  H.H.] 
M. :  '  Yes.  Remember,  friend,  this  is  exhausting  work — ex- 
hausting work.' 

"  M. :  '  Fish  Mermaid  Saturn  Hero  Olympus  (Then  fol- 
lowed a  word  which  was  written  down  as  '  pavia.'  In  response 
to  Mr.  Dorr's  requests  the  word  was  whispered  several  times,  but 
never  distinctly  enough  to  be  caught  with  certainty.)  Sybil — 
Olympus — water — Lethe— delighted — sad — lovely — mate. —  Put 
them  all  together.  (This  was  followed  by  inarticulate  whisper- 
ing.) Entwine  love — beautiful  shores. — Ask  him  if  he  cannot 
hear  me.  Muses. — I  wrote  "  church  "  long  ago  [see  Pr.XXII, 

44].     Olympus. There's  Mercury — Love — He  has   drawn   a 

cross  with  ivy  over  it.  Pharaoh's  daughter  came  out  of  the 
water — Warm — sunlit — love.  Lime  leaf — heart — sword — arrow 

"'I  shot  an  arrow  through  the  air 
And  it  fell  I  know  not  where.' 

"  (Mrs.  Piper  then  puts  her  hands  up  before  her  face,  palms 
outwards,  as  though  warding  something  off,  but  smilingly  like  a 
child  in  play.)  '  Oh !  point  it  the  other  way ! '  G.  B.  D. : '  Whom 
do  you  see  ? '  Mrs.  P. : '  Lady. — I  want  to  say  that  the  walls  came 
out,  and  in  the  air  was  a  lady  who  had  no  clothes  on ;  and  in  her 
hand  she  had  a  hoop  and  two  pointed  things,  and  she  pulled  a 
string,  and  she  pointed  it  straight  at  me,  and  I  thought  it  would 
hit  me  in  the  eye.  And  Mr.  Myers  put  his  hand  up  and  stopped 
her.  She  had  a  hoop,  and  there  was  only  half  of  the  hoop 
there '" 

So  ends  the  first  of  twenty-one  sittings  filled  with  similar 
allusions  which  cover  references  to  about  all  the  passages  in 
classical  literature  suggested  by  Lethe.  Out  of  many  pages 


Ch.  XLYIII]        Familiar  Latin  Sentences  777 

of  such  material  as  this,  Mr.  Piddington  extracted  evidence 
that  the  writing  contained  abundant  proof  that  the  Myers 
control  was,  as  Myers  was  in  life,  familiar  with  virtually  all 
that  literature.  Now  Mrs.  Piper,  as  already  explained,  know- 
ing virtually  none  of  it,  and  Mr.  Dorr  very  little,  the  only 
apparent  source  for  the  knowledge  manifested  was  the  sur- 
viving spirit  of  Myers.  It  takes  nearly  sixty  pages  of  reports 
of  sittings,  and  comments,  to  work  this  out,  but  the  demon- 
stration when  reached  seems  satisfactory. 

There  are  several  similar  topics  worked  out  in  the  same 
way. 

As  still  further  showing  the  sort  of  material  that  of  late 
has  been  absorbing  the  attention  of  the  leading  members  of  the 
S.  P.  R.,  I  quote  from  a  paper  by  Mrs.  Sidgwick,  ex-President 
of  the  S.  P.  R.,  widow  of  Professor  Henry  Sidgwick.  She 
is  giving  extracts  from  the  reports  of  Mr.  Dorr's  sittings 
with  Mrs.  Piper.  She  says  (Pr.  XXIV,  170f.) : 

"I  chose  these  purposely  on  account  of  their  familiarity. 
[The  Piper-Hodgson]  was  unable  to  translate  either  during  the 
sitting,  but  memorized  them,  the  veni  vidi  vici  sentence  espe- 
cially, to  take  away  with  him  and  work  over.  In  the  sitting  of 
the  9th  he  asks  me  to  repeat  them  and  says  that  he  has  brought 
Myers  to  help  in  their  translation 

"  The  following  is  the  record  of  part  of  the  sitting  of  March 
9th,  1908: 

"  (Hodgson  communicating.)  '  Hello  George.  I  brought  Myers 
to  help  out ;  will  you  kindly  repeat  that  Latin  for  me  V  G.  B.  D. : 
'  Veni,  vidi,  vici.'  H. :  '  Once  more,  and  again  repeat  in  Latin. 
(G.  B.  D.  repeats  several  times  over  very  slowly.)  I  understand. 
I  CA — I  came, — let  me  think  George — I  came  I  saw — once  more. 
(G.  B.  D.  repeats  again.)  I  c  o  n  q  u  e  r  e  d.'  G.  B.  D. :  '  Right.' 
H. :  '  Right — good.  Now  let  me  have  your  other.'  G.  B.  D. : 
'  The  other  Latin? '  H. : '  Yes,  Myers  is  here  helping  me.  (G.  B. 
D.  repeats  '  Annar  virumque  cano.')  Very  slowly.  (G.  B.  D.  re- 
peats again  very  slowly.)  I  sing  exile.'  G.  B.  D. :  '  Is  that  word 
exile? '  (Hand  makes  gesture  of  assent  after  pausing  a  moment 
outstretched  as  though  towards  an  invisible  personality  in  the 
room.)  H. :  '  I  sing  of  the  feats — Myers  said  it,  who  by  fate — I 
forget— etc.,  etc.'  G.  B.  D. :  '  Is  that  "  I  forget "  ? '  H. :  '  Ex- 
actly, but  "  I  sing  of  the  feats  of  the  exile,"  etc.,  etc. — exile. 
[Rector  seema  to  come  in  here  as  a  help  to  Hodgson.  H.H.] 
We  cannot  get  it  exactly  but  if  we  can  give  you  enough  to  make 
it  clear  that  we  understand  that  is  the  best  we  can  do  possibly.' 
G.  B.  D. :  '  Good.  Don't  attempt  to  translate,  but  let  me  have 


778       The  Piper-Myers  and  the  Classics    [Bk.  II,  Pt  IV 

what  memories  you  can.'  [R.  referring  to  H.  ?  H.H.]  '  He  is 
glad  you  understand.  He  says  Say  to  our  good  friend,  Troy. 
(Letters  not  read  at  first,  and  sense  not  taken.  Letters  rewritten 
over  and  over  again  until  clear.)  [H.  resumes  ?  H.H.]  Troy.  I'll 
go  give  that  to  Mrs.  Verrall.'  G.  B.  D. :  '  The  word  Troy  ? '  H. : 
'  Yes.  And  arms.'  G.  B.  D. : '  Will  you  give  her  the  words  Exile 
and  Troy  ? '  H. : '  Yes.'  G.  B.  D.  (to  Hodgson  [Rector  ?  H.H.]  )  : 
'  Had  he  better  attempt  any  more  ? '  H. :  '  Yes.'  G.  B.  D. : '  Who 
was  exiled?  (A  word  written  which  it  was  impossible  to  read.) 
What  is  that  word  ? '  [This  was  not  answered,  and  no  attempt 
was  made  at  the  moment  to  repeat  the  word.]  H. :  '  Juno 
JUNO'  G.  B.  D. :  '  Who  was  Juno  ? '  H. :  (Brief  word  not 
read.)  '  god '  G.  B.  D. :  '  What  did  Juno  do  with  regard  to 
Troy  and  exile?'  H. :  'Redeemed  [sic].  It  is  difficult  to  ex- 
press but  (Pause)  Teusis — as  he  was — S — wandered  and  thought 
he  was  lost.'  G.  B.  D. :  '  What  was  your  last  word  ? '  H. :  '  Lost. 
Do  you  get  my  idea?  Juno  saved — saved  him.  (Word  follows 
which  is  the  same  as  word  not  read  previously,  and  which  again 
cannot  be  read  but  which  looks  like  Tarius.  Note  by  G.  B.  D.) 
He  came  to  the  shores  of  Italy — shores  shores.'  G.  B.  D. : 

'  Shores  ? '    H. :  '  Yes    Italy I  sing  of  the  arms 

and  the  feats  of  the  exile  who  by  fate  was  etc.,  etc.  No  more.' 
G.  B.  D. : '  That  is  all  ? '  H. :  '  Yes  it  is  all  you  gave  me.  But  I 
remember  more.'  G.  B.  D. :  '  Will  you  give  me  what  more  you 
remember  ? '  H. :  '  Yes.  I  remember  the  incident  of  Juno — in- 
cident—' G.  B.  D. :  '  What  is  that  word? '  H. :  '  Incident— and 
her  saving'  (Same  name  not  read  before  is  here  repeated,  and 
apparently  quite  clearly  written.)  G.  B.  D. :  'I  can't  get  it.' 
(Tries  different  readings.)  H. : '  Not  quite — '  G.  B.  D. :  '  Means 
name  ? '  H. :  '  Yes  Exile.'  G.  B.  D. :  '  Can  you  remember  any 
names  to  tell  me  ? '  R. :  '  Name  several  and  he  will  tell  you 
which  one  it  was.'  G.  B.  D. :  '  Can  he  give  me  the  name  of  the 
exile  himself,  or  of  the  poem  ? '  H. :  '  Enoid.  [Letter  here  tran- 
scribed as  o  is  not  clear.]  Eid — I  did  not  get  all  the  letters  in 
Eiod — Einid — not  quite  but  near  enough.  Eind.'  G.  B.  D. : 
'  Can  you  give  me  the  name  of  the  poet  ? '  H. :  (Pause)  *  O,  I 
understand.  No,  I  can't  think  at  the  moment — Pronounce  it  for 
me  Einid.'  G.  B.  D. : '  Aeneid.'  H. :  '  Yes.  E  i  a  n  e.  (G.  B.  D. 
spells  it  over.)  Aenid.  (G.  B.  D.  repeats  name  again.)  I  re- 
member it  so  well.'  G.  B.  D. : '  Tell  Myers  he  translated  it.  Ask 
him  for  the  name  of  the  poet? '  [Myers  seems  to  appear.  H.H.] 
'  Blind  [This  seems  a  suggestion  of  Homer.  H.H.]  I  am  not 
blind  or  deaf  but  I  hear  with  difficulty.'  G.  B.  D. :  '  What  will 
you  try  to  take  to  England? '  [i.e.,  for  a  cross-correspondence  with 
a  medium  there.  H.H.]  [Rector?]  'Give  him  a  message.  He 
has  taken  "  face  in  flame."  TROY  Exile.'  G.  B.  D. :  '  Take  as 
synonym  for  Troy — do  you  know  what  synonym  means  ? '  M. : 
'  Yes  indeed.'  G.  B.  D. :  '  The  city  in  flames.  Saved  by  Juno.' 
(G.  B.  D.  here  repeats  over  slowly  what  Myers  undertakes  to  take 


Ch.  XLVIII]  TU  £!neid  779 

to  England.)  'Very  good.  Splendid.  He  has  already  given 
face  and  flame.'  (G.  B.  D.  goes  over  the  words  agreed  upon 
again.)  M. :  '  Yes,  I  understand  absolutely.  (G.  B.  D.  repeats 
words  over  once  more.)  Yes,  I  am  already  working  over  this 
with  Mrs.  Verrall.'  G.  B.  D. :  '  This  is  enough,  is  it  not? '  M. : 
'  Yes.  (G.  B.  D.  repeats  once  more  '  Troy,  the  city  in  flames, 
exile,  saved  by  Juno,  the  face  in  flame.')  Yes  NEPTUNE.' 
G.  B.  D. :  '  What  about  Neptune  ? '  M. :  '  I  thought  it  would  fit 
in  splendidly.  As  it  all  goes  in — '  (Pause.)  G.  B.  D. :  '  Are 
there  any  other  names  belonging  to  this  that  you  can  give  me  ? ' 
M. : '  You  see  it  comes  back  to  my  memory  by  degrees/  G.  B.  D. : 
'Why  was  Juno  interested?'  M.:  'LOVE.'  G.  B.  D.:  'For 
whom.'  M. :  '  Exile.  [G.  B.  D.  made  no  attempt  to  correct  the 
statement  with  regard  to  Juno's  part  in  the  drama,  but  he  thinks 
his  consciousness  of  the  error  made  may  perhaps  have  suggested 
what  came  next.]  Remember  where  I  am  and  where  you  are 
and  give  allowances.'  G.  B.  D. :  'Do  the  words  "her  injured 
form  "  suggest  anything  to  your  mind  ? '  M. :  '  You  mean  my 
Poem?'  G.  B.  D.:  'I  mean  the  old  Latin  poem.'  M.:  'Yes. 
Her  injured  form,  yes  indeed.  Juno.  (Some  words  follow  which 
cannot  be  read)  . . .  her  love  of  the  exile  and  she  restores  him. 
Restores.  Yes.  Built  to  save  her  exile  who  by  fate — fled  and 
she  met  him.  (These  last  words  G.  B.  D.  read  aloud  and  the 
hand  banged  approval  on  the  table.)  Yes.  It  is  all  in  fragments 
in  my  memory  as  it  comes  out  here,  but  if  I  could  speak  with 
you  as  of  old  I  could  quote  it  backwards.'  G.  B.  D. : '  Could  you 
give  me  more  through  the  voice  ? '  M. :  '  Not  so  well,  as  your 
words  often — your  words  often —  (Pause.  She  built  a  '  (pause.) 
G.  B.  D. :  '  Are  you  about  to  write  further  ? '  M. :  '  Yes,  I  am 

going  to  tell  you  how  she  goes  up  with  her  love  the  exile 

Remember?  (pause.)  I  can't  take  more  to  Mrs.  Verrall  but  I 
will  take  a  message  to  Helen  Verrall.'  [for  cross-correspondence. 
H.H.]  G.  B.  D. :  '  Will  you  repeat  again  the  messages  for  Mrs. 
Verrall  ? '  M. : '  Troy,  Exile,  City  in  flames,  Exile,  Face  in  flame, 
and  Juno.'  G.  B.  D. :  '  Is  that  all? '  M. :  '  Neptune.'  G.  B.  D. : 
'  Troy,  Juno,  Neptune,  city  in  flame,  face  in  flame — to  be  given 
to  Mrs.  Verrall.'  M. :  '  Yes — yes,  this  is  clear ;  send  it  to  Lodge. 

I  have  written  I  came,  I  saw through  Helen — [Mrs. 

Verrall's  daughter.  H.H.]  I  did  not  repeat  the  last  word  yet.' 
G.  B.  D. : '  That  was  not  written  ?  What  is  the  last  word  ? '  M. : 
'  CONQUERED— but  I  have  not  yet  got  that  through  Helen ' 
[i.e.,  succeeded  in  putting  it  through.  H.H.].  G.  B.  D. :  '  Have 
you  got  the  others  through? '  M. :  '  Yes — /  came,  I  saw.'  G.  B. 
D. :  'Do  you  mean  that  you  have  got  these  through  already?' 
M. :  '  I  do.  I  did  this  several  days  ago — before  this  trial.  Lodge 

will  tell  you  all  about  it . . .'    G.  B.  D. :  '  Had  you  not 

better  stop  now? '  M. :  '  Yes,  I  shall  go  and  give  my  messages  to 
Mrs.  V.  and  Helen.'  G.  B.  D. :  '  Good,  but  do  not  hurry  in  doing 
BO.  Try  and  get  it  clearly  through.  Give  it  in  single  words  or 


780       The  Piper-Myers  and  the  Classics    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

phrases  as  they  come.  Do  not  try  to  connect  things  together 
unless  they  come  to  you  so.'  M. :  '  Like  Neptune.  Yes,  I  under- 
stand.' 

"  [S.]  Among  the  words  here  mentioned  as  written  or  to  be 
written  through  Mrs.  or  Miss  Verrall,  Neptune,  Troy,  and  Exile 
afford  clear  cases  (which  I  shall  describe  at  length)  of  corre- 
spondence with  Miss  Verrall's  script — not  with  Mrs.  Verrall's. 
Some  correspondence  might  perhaps  be  claimed  in  the  case  of 
other  words,  but  it  will  be  more  profitable  to  dwell  on  the  clear 
cases  only." 

Then  Mrs.  Sidgwick  gives  Miss  Yen-all's  side  in  detail. 

I  quote  from  Mrs.  Verrall  (Pr.  XXIV,  6 If.)  a  moderate 
illustration  of  the  laborious  examination  to  which  the  auto- 
matic script  has  been  submitted.  The  Pr.  S.  P.  R.  of  recent 
years  contain  hundreds,  perhaps  thousands,  of  pages  of  such 
careful  and  scholarly  work. 

"  The  words  Arma  virumque  cano  were  given  to  Hodgson  on 
February  25th,  1908,  for  translation.  On  March  9th,  at  the  first, 
namely,  of  this  series  of  sittings,  Hodgson  announced  that  he 
had  brought  Myers  to  help,  and  asked  to  have  the  words  re- 
peated. The  first  attempt  to  translate  this  phrase  goes  beyond 
the  actual  words  given,  though  probably  hardly  beyond  the  know- 
ledge of  most  educated  persons.  The  literal  translation  is  '  Arms 
and  the  man  I  sing ' ;  the  translation  given  by  Myers  is  '  I  sing 
of  the  feats  of  the  exile,  who  by  fate ' ;  he  adds  the  words  '  Troy,' 
'  arms,'  and  '  Juno,'  and  further  shows  knowledge  that  the  exile 
wandered  and  came  to  the  shores  of  Italy.  Thus,  though  we  have 
only  an  actual  translation  of  the  words  virum  . . .  cano  . . .  qui  . . . 
fato  profugus,  knowledge  is  shown  such  as  would  be  derived  from 
the  context  of  the  next  three  lines  (arma,  Troiae,  Italiam,  venit 
litora,  Junonis).  Moreover  the  phraseology  of  the  actual  trans- 
lation given  is  not  what  one  would  expect  from  Mrs.  Piper,  nor 
is  it  identical  with  that  of  any  version  known  to  me.  The  word 
'  feats,'  for  instance,  which  is  quite  appropriate,  does  not  occur 
in  any  translation  which  I  have  consulted. 

"  Mr.  Dorr  then  asked  for  the  name  of  the  exile,  or  of  the 
poem,  and  in  reply  obtained  many  attempts  at  the  word  Aeneid, 
unmistakable  but  not  correct,  thus :  '  Enoid — Eid — I  did  not  get 
all  the  letters  in — Eiod — Einid — not  quite  but  near  enough 

Eind '  And  even  after  the  sitter  had  spoken  the  word  at  the 

control's  request,  the  repetition  by  the  hand  was,  '  Eiane  Aenid.' 
The  name  of  the  author  was  asked  for,  but  not  remembered  '  at 
the  moment ' ;  a  repeated  request  for  the  author's  name  produded 
what  looks  like  a  confusion  with  Homer,  corrected  into  a  per- 
sonal statement : '  Blind — I  am  not  blind  or  deaf  but  I  hear  with 
difficulty.' 


Ch.  XLVIII]  The  &neid  781 

"  The  spontaneous  introduction  in  the  course  of  this  sitting 
of  the  name  Juno  is  a  good  point,  and  the  word  'god'  which 
immediately  follows  Juno  recalls  the  vi  superum  of  the  same 
line.  But  in  answer  to  Mr.  Dorr's  question  as  to  what  Juno  did 
with  regard  to  Troy  and  the  exile,  we  hare  a  series  of  incorrect 
statements  showing  clearly  that  the  part  played  by  Juno  in  the 
story  of  Aeneas  is  completely  misapprehended.  The  exile,  called 
Teusis  ( ?)  or  Torius,  wandered  and  thought  he  was  lost,  but  was 
redeemed  and  saved  by  Juno.  Again,  the  control  speaks  of 
Juno's  love  for  the  exile  and  volunteers  '  the  incident  of  Juno 
and  her  saving  Torius '  as  a  proof  of  memory.  The  placing  to- 
gether of  the  words,  '  Exile,'  and  '  Saved  by  Juno '  as  successive 
messages  to  be  used  for  transmission  may  have  emphasized  the 
original  misconception.  But  in  spite  of  Mr.  Dorr's  recognition 
of  the  mistake  about  Juno's  action,  and  even  after  the  trance- 
personality  had  remembered  or  guessed  that  Juno  was  the  owner 
of  the  '  injured  form '  asked  about  by  the  sitter,  the  mistake  still 
persists.  It  is  not  corrected  until  the  next  day,  March  10th,  and 
then  only  after  a  strong  hint  from  Mr.  Dorr. 

"Perhaps  the  best  evidence  of  a  real  acquaintance  with  the 
poem  is  found  in  the  spontaneous  introduction  in  this  sitting, 
March  9th,  of  the  name  Neptune.  This  follows  immediately 
upon  the  repetition  by  Mr.  Dorr  of  five  phrases  chosen  for  trans- 
mission as  messages  for  cross-correspondence,  thus : 

"  G.  B.  D. : '  Troy,  the  city  in  flames,  exile,  saved  by  Juno,  the 
face  in  flame.'  M. : '  Yes.  Neptune.'  G.  B.  D. : '  What  about 
Neptune  ? '  M. :  '  I  thought  it  would  fit  in  splendidly.  As  it  all 
goes  in.'  (Pause.)  G.  B.  D. :  '  Are  there  any  other  names  be- 
longing to  this  that  you  can  give  me  ? '  M. :  '  You  see  it  comes 
back  to  my  memory  by  degrees.' " 

Mrs.  Verrall  may  be  right,  probably  is,  but  the  poor  mem- 
ory of  Myers,  Hodgson,  and  others  regarding  the  yEneid  or 
anything  else  their  mediums  are  not  in  key  with,  I  cannot 
reconcile  with  their  good  memory  for  matters  within  the 
medium's  knowledge  and  sympathy. 

I  continue  with  Mrs.  Verrall's  examination  (pp.  63-4) : 

"  Readers  of  the  Aeneid  will  remember  the  famous  passage 
where  the  storm  sent  upon  Aeneas  by  Aeolus  at  Juno's  request, 
is  calmed  by  the  appearance  of  Neptune  (Aen.  I.  125).  It  is 
therefore  appropriate  that  the  name  Neptune  should  be  at  once 
introduced  among  reminiscences  of  the  first  Aeneid.  The  name 
is  repeated  with  emphasis  by  Myers  when  the  cross-correspond- 
ence messages  are  again  enumerated,  and  later  in  answer  to  a 
suggestion  from  the  sitter  not  to  '  try  to  connect  things  together 
unless  they  come  to  you  so,'  Myers  replies:  'Like  Neptune.' 

"  No  definite  reminiscences  can  be  traced  in  the  later  remarks 


782       The  Piper-Myers  and  the  Classics    [Bk.  II,  Ft  IV 

at  this  sitting  about '  her  love  of  the  exile  and  she  restores  him,' 
and  'built,  she  built  a, — she  goes  up  with  her  love  the  exile.' 
But  in  view  of  what  follows  in  subsequent  sittings  I  think  it 
possible  that  we  have  here  a  first  emergence  of  Dido  and  her 
part  in  the  poem. 

"  At  the  risk  of  seeming  fanciful  I  hazard  conjectures  to  ac- 
count for  the  incorrect  or  unexplained  statements  above  de- 
scribed. At  the  first  reading  neither  Torius  nor  Teusis  conveyed 
any  meaning  to  me,  but  Mr.  Piddington  suggested  that  the  word 
which  appears  as  Torius  or  Tarius  may  be  intended  for  Troius, 
the  inversion  of  two  letters  being  not  uncommon  in  Piper  script. 
Aeneas  is  called  Troius  in  the  first  book  (I.  596).  The  followers 
of  Aeneas  are  called  throughout  the  poem  indifferently  Trojans, 
Teucrians,  and  Dardanians,  from  the  names  of  three  heroes  of 
the  race,  Tros,  Teucer,  Dardanus.  If  Torius  recalls  Troius, 
perhaps  Teusis  is  aimed  at  Teucer. 

"Again,  the  mistake  about  Juno  is  perhaps  explicable  if  we 
suppose  a  confusion  between  two  passages  very  familiar  to  clas- 
sical readers,  in  the  first  Aeneid  and  the  fifth  book  of  the 
Odyssey.  In  both  the  hero,  after  much  wandering,  is  lost  in  a 
god-sent  storm  and  saved  by  the  interposition  of  a  god.  In 
Odyssey  V.  Odysseus  is  saved  by  Ino  from  the  storm  sent  by 
Poseidon  (Neptune).  In  Aeneid  I.  it  is  by  Neptune  that  Aeneas 
is  saved  from  the  storm  roused  by  Juno's  wrath.  Possibly  the 
similarity  of  the  names  Ino  and  Juno  may  have  aided  the  con- 
fusion. That  there  was  confusion  in  the  trance  between  Homer 
and  Virgil  is  clear,  for  though  the  name  of  the  poem  is  said  to 
be  Aeneid,  a  repeated  request  for  the  name  of  the  poet  produces 
in  the  word  '  blind '  an  unmistakable  allusion  to  the  writer,  not 
of  the  Aeneid,  but  of  the  Odyssey." 

Now  a  supporter  of  the  telepathic  hypothesis  (I  support 
it  in  this  case  and  do  not  in  some  others)  would  say:  All 
this  seems  to  me  to  defeat  itself — not  to  contain  anything 
which  both  Mrs.  Piper  and  Miss  Verrall  could  not  have  got 
from  Mr.  Dorr :  the  range  here  is  not  too  wide  for  the  modest 
claims  he  makes;  and  therefore  possible  telepathy  between 
Mr.  Dorr  and  Mrs.  Piper  does  away  with  all  certainty  that 
a  surviving  Myers  spoke  through  Mrs.  Piper  or  Miss  Verrall. 
In  view  of  hosts  of  similar  cases,  Miss  Verrall's  distance  in 
England  need  not  have  made  any  difficulty.  But  Mrs.  Verrall 
takes  a  different  view.  She  says  (Pr.  XXIV,  60) : 

"A  personality  claiming  to  have  access  to  the  memories  of 
Frederic  Myers  ought  to  be  able  to  show  a  knowledge  of  this 
poem  not  only  beyond  anything  attainable  by  the  medium,  but 
considerably  exceeding  the  knowledge  of  the  sitter.  This  I  be- 


Ch.  XLVIII]    Communications  Limited  "by  Medium       783 

lieve  to  have  been  the  case.  Amid  much  error  and  confusion  we 
get  indications,  as  I  think,  that  the  increasing  knowledge  shown 
is  due  to  the  revival  of  once  familiar  memories,  and  not  to  the 
acquisition  of  information,  or  to  the  development  of  suggestion 
from  the  sitter." 

Another  explanation  may  be  worth  considering.  Is  not  the 
general  clearness  and  veridicity  of  the  controls — especially 
Hodgson,  inconsistent  with  the  theory  of  faded  memories? 
Does  it  not  look  more  as  if  the  difficulty  might  be  with  the 
medium?  While  the  conversation  is  within  the  comprehen- 
sion of  Mrs.  Piper,  Hodgson,  for  instance,  in  his  new  capacity 
of  spiritual  control,  bubbles  over  with  vivacity  and  reminis- 
cence, but  when  he  is  attacked  with  anything  outside  the  com- 
prehension of  Mrs.  Piper,  he  is  struck  dumb,  and,  though  he 
certainly  knew  enough  to  translate  Latin  sentences  which 
every  schoolboy  knows,  goes  to  get  Myers  to  help  him.  Myers 
generally,  in  the  script,  so  far  as  relates  to  matters  that  his 
mediums  can  understand,  is  as  much  his  old  self  as  Hodgson 
— even  his  old  scholarly  self  with  Mrs.  Verrall,  who  is  a 
scholar;  when  he  comes  to  Mrs.  Piper,  he  is  at  first  hardly 
more  of  a  scholar  than  she  is,  but  gradually  finds  his  way 
back  to  something  like  his  original  powers. 

I  have  been  struck  with  another  apparent  inconsistency  all 
through  the  script.  When  the  controls  are  not  "  put  to  it " 
for  anything  special,  they  are  as  bright  as  anybody  else;  as 
soon  as  anything  evidential  is  required,  they  generally  lapse 
into  idiocy,  and  emerge  again  by  slow  degrees,  except  as  the 
conversation  departs  from  the  test  topic:  then  they  suddenly 
recover  their  faculties,  but  relapse  again  when  the  test  dif- 
ficulty is  before  them. 

On  the  spiritistic  hypothesis,  the  first  guess  suggested  by 
these  facts  is  that  the  communicators  must  work  their  way 
through  the  medium  with  degrees  of  difficulty  varying  in- 
versely as  the  medium's  knowledge  of  the  subject  on  which 
the  controls  wish  to  communicate;  and  where  the  knowledge 
is  slight,  it  takes  time  to  prepare  the  channels  in  the  medium's 
brain,  so  to  speak,  for  carrying  the  message. 

Or  to  express  it  differently,  take  the  vague  conception  of 
the  cosmic  consciousness,  of  which  our  consciousnesses  are 
fluctuating  parts — our  share  of  it  varying,  just  as  our  share 


784       The  Piper-Myers  and  the  Classics    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

of  the  cosmic  energy  varies.  The  medium  needs  time  to 
receive  telepathically  and  accumulate  from  the  cosmic  con- 
sciousness any  knowledge  outside  the  range  of  her  own  mind. 
Ordinarily  the  cosmic  inflow  can  manifest  through  her  the 
respective  portions  of  itself  constituting  Myers'  mind  or  Hodg- 
son's mind,  only  so  far  as  her  mind  has  the  same  receptive 
capacity  as  one  of  them ;  but  by  constant  pushing,  so  to  speak, 
or  one  might  say,  teaching,  her  mind  is  gradually  opened,  for 
at  least  the  temporary  passing  of  the  thought.  Until  that  is 
done,  they  must  wait ;  and  only  so  far  as  it  is  done,  can  they 
go;  hence  their  frequent  vagueness,  and  their  varying  clear- 
ness with  different  mediums. 

This  guess  is  of  course  vague  and  paradoxical  as  (I  hope 
I  am  not  wearisome  in  repeating)  all  guesses  in  these  regions 
must  be ;  but  it  may  contain  some  adumbration  of  the  truth ; 
and  does  it  not  seem  as  probable  as  the  fading  memory  theory  ? 
It  is  certainly  more  comfortable. 


CHAPTER  XLIX 
THE  PIPER-JUNOT  SITTINGS 

THE  S.  P.  E.  again  disregarded  chronology  in  leaving 
until  Volume  XXIV  the  report  of  "The  Junot  Sittings," 
which  were  conducted  by  Hodgson  from  June  18,  1899,  until 
November  22,  1905,  within  a  few  weeks  of  his  death. 

I  have  followed  the  Society's  example  in  bringing  them 
in  after  the  other  matter  I  have  quoted,  because,  everything 
considered,  to  most  readers,  perhaps  to  all,  they  will  appear 
a  fitting  climax — to  those  who  scoff  they  may  seem  the 
climax  of  absurdity;  and  for  those  who  regard  the  matter 
seriously,  they  probably  will  hold  the  climax  of  interest. 

Not  the  least  interesting  point  is  that  they  show  Hodgson 
in  the  beneficent  activity  of  his  later  years  as  a  consoler  of 
the  afflicted. 

Their  main  interest,  however,  is  in  their  appeal  to  wide- 
spread sympathies,  and  their  encouragement  of  widespread 
hopes. 

For  most  readers  but  special  and  laborious  students,  these 
sittings  seem  to  me,  on  the  whole,  the  most  satisfactory 
material  I  know,  and  Hodgson  regarded  them  very  highly. 

Yet  there  is  little  or  nothing  about  them  evidential  in  the 
ordinary  sense,  but  much  that  may  be  in  other  senses,  in- 
cluding the  dramatic  verisimilitude  and  the  apparent  "  grow- 
ing up  "  of  the  control. 

I  regret  the  great  but  inevitable  inadequacy  of  the  scraps 
for  which  alone  I  have  room.  If  they  interest  you  much, 
get  Part  LXI  of  Vol.  XXIV. 

There  are  sixty-five  sittings.  Hodgson  was  present  at  all 
but  one :  so  they  were  conducted  and  reported  unusually  well. 
They  are  edited  by  Miss  Helen  Verrall,  who  was  one  of  the 
little  girls  in  the  sittings  in  Vol.  XIII.  Most  of  the  usual 
defective  punctuation  and  capitalization  has  been  tolerated. 

The  names  are  all  pseudonyms.  The  chief  communicator 
is  called  Bennie  Junot.  He  died  on  September  5,  1898,  at 

T85 


786  The  Piper-Junot  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

the  age  of  seventeen.  The  surviving  family  consisted  of  his 
father,  mother,  brother  "Roble,"  and  sister  Helen.  A  gen- 
erous supply  of  the  fundamental  virtues  made  the  family, 
including  Bennie,  unusually  attractive,  and  it  is  well  worth 
while  to  read  the  sittings,  at  least  till  repetition  becomes  ex- 
cessive, if  only  for  the  picture  they  give  of  a  model  family  life. 
Miss  Verrall  says  (Pr.  XXIV,  352f.)  that  the  records 

"  do  not  present  to  those  who  have  read  the  earlier  reports  on 
Mrs.  Piper's  trance-phenomena  any  new  or  startling  features. 
But  the  cumulative  effect  of  the  evidence,  taken  as  a  whole,  is 
striking,  on  account  of  the  unusually  small  proportion  of  error, 
confusion  and  irrelevance,  and  there  are  many  points  of  psycho- 
logical interest  [for  which  I  wish  I  had  space.  H.H.]  . . . 
amongst  the  statements  which  must  be  described  as  incorrect, 
only  a  small  proportion  are  wholly  false  or  meaningless.  Many 
contain  some  phrase  or  word  perfectly  relevant  and  intelligible, 

round  which  is  woven  a  tissue  of  false  interpretations 

"  With  a  few  exceptions ...  no  information  was  given  in 
the  trance . . .  that  had  not  been  known  at  some  time  to  some 
members  of  Bennie  Junot's  family,  but  many  of  the  clear- 
est and  most  correct  statements  were  made  not  in  their  presence 
but  when  Dr.  Hodgson  was  alone.  [So  we  are  at  least  driven 
from  telepathy  from  the  sitter.  H.H.]  . . .  there  is  nothing  in 
the  evidential  part  of  the  communications  which  provably  tran- 
scends telepathy  between  living  minds Perhaps  tbe  incident 

most  difficult  to  explain  in  this  way  is  that  concerning  John 
Welsh. . . .  On  February  11,  1902,  Mr.  Junot  sent  a  message 
through  bis  son  Bennie  [via  Mrs.  Piper.  H.H.]  to  a  former 
coachman  of  his,  Hugh  Irving,  who  had  been  dead  some  months, 
asking  where  '  the  dog  Rounder '  was.  Hugh  Irving  had  left 
Mr.  Junot's  service  about  two  months  before  his  death,  and 
taken  the  dog  with  him.  In  the  waking-stage  on  April  2,  1902, 
it  is  stated  that  '  John  Welsh  has  Rounder,' . . .  and  it  was 
through  his  attempts  to  find  John  Welsh  that  Mr.  Junot  re- 
covered the  dog Neither  Mr.  Junot  nor  any  of  his  family 

had  ever  to  their  knowledge  heard  of  John  Welsh  (at  any  rate 
under  that  name),  still  less  of  his  connection  with  Hugh  Irving 
and  possible  connection  with  the  dog.  Doubtless  people  could 
have  been  found  to  whom  all  these  facts  were  known,  but  they 
were  not  people  with  whom  Mrs.  Piper  had  ever  been 
brought  into  contact " 

NOTE. — The  notes  in  round  brackets  were  made  at  the  sitting 
by  the  person  responsible  for  the  management  of  it,  that  is,  in 
almost  all  cases,  by  Dr.  Hodgson.  The  notes  in  square  brackets 


Ch.  XUX]    Return  Seems  to  Puzzle  Control  787 

are  comments  added  afterwards  by  the  persons  whose  initials 
are  appended  to  them. 

IST  SITTING.    (PR.XXIV,355.) 

June  19,  1899.  Present :  N.  B.  Junot  and  R.  H. 
(S.*  remarked  before  the  trance  began :    "  It  was  nearly  freez- 
ing when  I  left  C .") 

(Eector  writes.)  t 

"  Hail  thou  friend  why  come  to  us  in  sorrow 
Why  needst  thou  weep  when  all  is  well  and  ever  will  be. 

We  will  find  thy  friends  for  thee  and  bring  them  here " 

"  We  see  among  our  friends  here  [i.e.  in  Rector's  world. 
H.H.]  a  young  man  who  seems  dazed  and  puzzled.  He  is  not 
near  enough  to  us  for  us  to  give  him  much  help  at  the  mo- 
ment but  will  be  presently." 

"R.  H.  [to  S.]  'Follow?'  S.— 'Yes,  I  understand.'  R.— 
'  George  [Pelham.  H.H.]  is  here  with  him  and  trying  to  urge 
him  to  come  closer . . .  that  he  may  see  into  thy  world  more 
clearly.'  Bennie  Junot  [perhaps  literally  reported  by  R.,  as  so 
often  said  to  be  done.  H.H.] — '  I  hear ...  I  hear  some  thing. 
Where  is  my  mother — I  want  very  much  to  see  her. — I  can 
breathe  easier  now  [again  a  "spirit's"  need  of  material  air! 
Possibly  genuine  but  metaphorical.  H.H.] — I  want  to  go  home 
now . . .  And  take  up  my  studies  and  go  on  ...  I  see  some  one 
who  looks  like  my  father — I  want  to  see  him  very  much.'  S. — 
'  Speak  on,  Bennie,  tell  us  all  about  yourself.'  (Much  excite- 
ment.) [In  hand.  H.H.]  B. — '  I ...  I  want  to  see  you 
awfully  . . .  I '  [My  son  used  "  awfully  "  in  this  way  frequently. 
— N.B.J.] 

R.  H. — '  Take  your  time.  Take  your  time.  Be  quite  calm.' 
"  B. — '  Father — papa — papa — Pa — Pa — father.  I  hear  some- 
thing strange  . . .  can  it  be  your  voice.'  S. — '  Yes,  Bennie,  it's 
daddy.'  B. — '  I ...  You  hear  me  ...  do  you  hear  me — I . .  .wonder 
how  I  can  reach  you  as  I  long  to  do.  I  heard  all  you  said  . . . 
And  I  want  to  tell  you  where  I  am.  (Hand  moves  towards 
R.  H.)  You  are  not  my  father.'  R.  H. — '  Kindly  listen  one 
moment.  I  am  with  your  father,  and  I  have  brought  your 
father  here  for  you  to  free  your  mind  to  him.'  B. — '  And  can 
I  do  so  now.'  R.  H. — '  Yes,  fire  away,  take  your  time  and  be 

*Mr.  Junot  was  introduced  to  Mrs.  Piper  anonymously,  according  to 
Dr.  Hodgson's  usual  practice.  He  is  therefore  referred  to  here  as  S. 
(=sitter)  and  not  by  his  initials.  [Though  they  appear  later  both  in  the 
report  and  in  his  comments.  H.  H.J 

t  Throughout  these  sittings  Rector  is  In  control  of  the  medium  and 
acts  aa  amanuensis,  except  where  there  is  a  statement  to  the  contrary. 


788  The  Piper-Junot  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

quite  calm.' . . .  B. — '  I  want  to  see  father  more  than  any  one 
except  mama.'  S. — '  Bennie,  tell  me  what  to  say  to  your 
mother.'  B. — '  Oh  she  is  so  sad,  tell  her  I  called  her  the  other 
day  and  I  could  not  make  her  hear  me.  I  love  her  so,  but . . . 
wait  till  I  think  it  over  and  I  will  say  it  all.'  S. — 'Are  you 
happy  where  you  are  ? '  B. — '  I  wish  I  could  hear  you.  You 
were  so  good  to  me . . .  Do  you  ride  any  now.'  S. — '  Yes,  sweet- 
heart,— yes,  sweetheart,  and  think  of  you  every  day  when  I  ride.' 
B. — '  I  often  think  how  I  used  to  go  with  you.'  S. — '  Do  you 
remember  your  ride  in  the  West?'  (Much  excitement.)  B. — 
'I  do  very  well.  Yes  I  do.  I  remember  it  all  and  do  you  re- 
member what  happened  to  me.  Do  you  remember  anything 
about  a  storm  dad ' 

"  R.  H. — '  Write  that  word  again,  Rector,  please.'  R. — 
'  Sounds  like  S  t  O  R  M — Rain.'  S. — '  Let  me  ask  him  a  ques- 
tion.' B, — '  Oh  so  many  things  are  going  through  my  head/ 
S. — 'Who  went  with  you  on  your  ride  in  the  West?'  B. — 
'  Will  you  say  it  again  . . .  who  was  with  me . . .  I . . .'  R.  H. — 
'  The  father  says,  "  Who  was  with  you  in  your  ride  in  the 
West  ? " '  B. — '  Father  says ...  I ...  who ...  I  want  to  know 
about  Harry.'  [Harry  was  a  cowboy  friend  of  my  son  with 
whom  he  took  a  long  horseback  journey  in  the  West. — N.B.JVJ 

S.— '  That's  right.'    B.— '  Tell  him  I  remember  it  well 1 . . .' 

S. — 'Yes,  he  wrote  your  mother  lately.  Harry's  gone  South. 
He's  gone  away  South.'  B. — '  And  he  is  a  good  fellow  and  do 
you  know  I  liked  him  very  much  and  I  thought  he  sent  the 
photograph  to  her.'  [After  my  son's  death,  Harry  having 
reached  a  town  sent  his  photograph. — N.  B.  J.]  S. — '  He  did, 
yes,  he  did.'  B. — '  I  heard  her  say  it  looked  like  him.  I  am 
very  happy  now,  better  than  ever  before.  I  saw  her  when  she 
was  so  ill.'  [His  mother  suffered  an  illness  not  long  after  his 
death. — N.B.  J.]  S. — '  Bennie,  what  are  you  doing  now  ?  What 
are  you  doing  now,  Bennie?'  B. — 'What  am  I  doing — why 
pa  [?]  dear — I  am  doing  everything,  writing — reading — study- 
ing, and  am  generally  happy.  Do  you  hear  me  I  am  getting . . . 
clearing  I  think.  I  often ...  I  often  think  I  hear  you  calling 
me.'  S. — '  Yes,  we  call  for  you  often,  dearie.'  B. — '  And  when 
mother  sits  in  that  chair  by  the  window  I  hear  her  say — Oh 
if  I  could  only  see  you  dear.  Ask  her ' 

"  B. — '  Did  Harry  say  he  would  send  me  any  message.  Speak 
slowly  dad  or  I  cannot  hear  all  you  say.'  S. — '  Mama  wrote 
and  told  Harry  that  you  had  gone  away  and  left  us.'  B. — '  I 
wonder  what  he  thought  when  he  heard  that.  Give  him  my 
love  and  tell  him  I  will  never  forget  the  good  times  we  had 
together ' 

"  B. — '  Who  was  that  who  tried  to  call  me  back.  I  did  not 
like  her.  Who  was  that  who  tried  to  call  me  back.  I  did . . .' 
[A  harmonica  [one  of  the  articles  brought  for  "  influence." 
H.H.]  had  Idng  been  carried  by  my  boy.  I  learned  after  the 


Ch.  XLIX]    'Anxiety  about  Non-existent  Letters  789 

sitting  on  my  return  to  the  West  that  an  old  nurse  had  asked 
for  it  and  had  carried  it  to  a  medium  of  her  acquaintance, 
hoping  for  some  communication,  but  had  returned  it  to  my 

wife  saying  that  she  had  heard  nothing. — N.  B.  J.] " 

"  S. — *  Do  you  see  mother  and  papa  drive  out  South  some- 
times ? '  B. — '  Of  course  I  do.  I  told . . .  out  to  where  they  took 
my  body.'  S. — '  Ah,  sure,  Bennie,  your  mind's  clear  enough.' 
B. — '  And  I  see  the  flowers  mother  put  there  (not  read  at 
once)  they ' " 

Throughout  the  sittings  he  gives  accounts  of  teloptic  visions 
of  what  must  have  been  nearly  all  their  visits  to  the  cemetery 
(of  which  I  quote  a  very  small  portion) — describes  the  flowers 
they  take,  arrangements  they  make  in  the  lot,  etc.  Are 
these  mere  telepathy  from  the  sitters,  or  teloteropathy  from, 
the  parents  when  Hodgson  alone  is  sitting  in  their  behalf? 

(Pr.  XXIV,  369) : 

"  B. — '  Well,  pa,  do  you  mind  if  I  tell  you  something  which 
is  on  my  mind.'  S. — *  No,  go  on,  Bennie,  tell  everything.' 
B. — '  I  want  very  much  to  send  a  message  to  mother  who  knows 
more  about  it  than  any  one.  Tell  her  dear  pa  that  I  left  two 
or  three  letters  in  my  little  case  written  to  me  by  L,  and  I  do 
not  wish  any  one  to  see  them  but  her'  S. — '  Yes,  dearie.'  B. — 
'  I  know  perfectly  well  what  I  mean,  and  she  will  know  too. . . . 
I  am  anxious  about  this  as  I  did  not  realize  I  was  going  to 
leave  as  I  did.  There  is  nothing  else  on  my  mind  that  makes 
me  feel  like  this.'" 

He  harped  on  these  letters  through  many  sittings,  but  none 
were  found  to  account  for  any  anxiety  beyond  that  of  a 
rather  unusually  systematic  boy,  which  he  seems  to  have  been. 

" '  And  I  want  to  say  one  thing  more . . .  would  you  mind  going 
out . . .  come  here  dad  I  want  to  speak  to  you  about . . .'  (R.  H. 
goes  out.)  S. — '  What  is  it  ? '  B. — '  Do  not  bother  me  now. 

I   want   to   speak   to  you   about '     S. — '  Write   on.'     B. — 

'  L  en  a  [or  Laura  ?]  do  you  remember  her  . . .  Laura  [  ?]  and 
Harris  ...HARRIS.  Do  you  know  what  I  mean.'  S. — '  I  do 
not  know.'  B. — '  I  want  you  to  remember ...  Af ...  Alfred . . . 
where  is  he  ...  at  home.'. . .  [A  near  neighbor  and  friend  of  my 
son.— N.  B.  J.]  S.— '  He's  married  now.'  B.— '  Since  I  left.' 
S.— '  Yes,  since  you  left.'  B.— '  Is  he  all  right.'  S.— '  No,  he'8 
not  well.'  B. — '  I  am  so  happy  to  see  you.  I  never  felt  as  I  do 
now.  I  am  telling  you  about  Alfred  . . .  about  Alfred ...  I ... 
yes  because  I  remember  all  about  him '" 


790  The  Piper-Junot  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV. 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  new  and  apparently  confused 
communicator  that  he  should  seem  to  be  on  the  brink 
of  something  important,  as  when  he  sent  Hodgson  out  of 
the  room,  and  then  apparently  lose  sight  of  it.  He  dropped 
the  girl  at  once,  and  now  doesn't  ask  what  ails  his  friend. 
The  later  sittings  show  much  less  of  this  sort  of  thing. 

Then  begin  some  of  the  novel  attempts  to  write  his  name. 
He  keeps  on  through  several  sittings  before  he  gets  it  in  full. 

SRD  SITTING.     (PR.XXIV,379.) 

July  6,  1899.  Present:  E.  H. 

(G.  P.  writes) 

"  R.  H.  —  '  George,  any  message  from  Bennie  ?  '  [Hand  reaches 
out.]    B.  —  '  ......  I  am  so  glad  about  the  horse  —  I  do  not  know 

what  to  say.'  " 

[Extract  from  letter  of  N.  B.  J.,  July  12,  1899.  "  When  I  was 
with  you  Bennie  asked  that  his  horse  be  given  to  his  little 
sister.  I  ...  wired  to  C  -  to  stop  the  sale  of  the  horse,  which 
was  done  just  in  time  .  .  .  and  the  children  and  especially 
'  Uncle  Willie  '  have  been  using  him  a  great  deal."] 


SITTING.    (PR.XXIV,380f.) 

March  5,  1900.  Present:  Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.  and  R.  H. 

"  (Rector  writes.  Excitement  and  turmoil  in  hand.  Cross  in 
air.  Much  excitement  at  first  in  the  following  writing.)  [Ow- 
ing presumably  to  this  being  the  first  time  the  mother  had  ap- 
peared. H.H.]  '  Dad  —  Dad  —  Dad  —  yes  I  am  coming  dear  .  .  . 
wait  until  I  pass  through  the  light  and  I  will  meet  you  once 
more.  It  is  I,  Bennie  don't  you  know  me.'  N.  B.  J.  —  '  Yes, 
Bennie,  we  hear  you.'  B.  —  '  I  see  mama  I  am  so  glad  so  glad  .  .  . 
oh  do  you  know  all  I  feel  for  you  .  .  .  Dad  dear,  do  you  remember 
all  I  told  you  and  mama  about  myself  before.'  N.  B.  J.  —  '  Yes, 
Bennie,  I  remember  all  you  said  before.'  B.  —  '  Did  you  hear 
me  when  I  came  into  your  room  a  few  weeks  ago.'  N.  B.  J.  — 
'  I  thought  I  did.  But  I  was  not  sure.  What  did  you  do  ?  ' 
B.  —  '  I  came  in  and  walked  over  to  you  and  made  a  noise,  did 
you  hear  it  ?  '  N.  B.  J.  —  '  I  thought  I  did,  but  I  was  not  sure.' 
B.  —  '  Well  you  may  be  sure  now.'  (Perturbation  in  hand.)" 

Through  the  sittings  Bennie  seems  to  think  himself  pos- 
sessed of  some  telekinetic  power  to  make  noises  and  prevent 
accidents,  but  there  is  no  clear  evidence  that  it  was  ever 
manifested.  Mrs.  Piper  had  none:  she  never  produced  any 
table-tipping  or  raps  or  other  noises.  Possibly  Bennie  could 
have  shown  it  through  a  medium  possessing  it. 


Ch.  XLIX]     Influence  of  Familiar  Articles  791 

"  Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  I  often  think  you  come  to  me.  Do  you  ? ' 
B. — '  Come  to  you  . . .  yes  indeed  I  do  and  mama  there  is  no 
doubt  about  it.  I  do  see  and  know  a  great  deal  about  you  and 
the  things  you  do.  I  see  all  the  pictures  of  myself  and  all  my 
own  work.'  [We  have  a  great  many  pictures  of  Bennie  lately 
placed  in  our  rooms — also  various  pieces  of  his  handiwork. — 
N.  B.  J.]  Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  are  you  happy  ? '  B. — '  Happy, 
yes,  very,  and  I  wish  you  to  be  also.  Promise  me  and  I  will 
never  say  any  more  about  the  past,  believe  mama  dear  that  it 
is  all  right.  I  know  it  is.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  I  feel  happier  now 
that  I  have  seen  you.'  B. — '  Well  you  will  dear  if  you  will 
only  listen  and  in  a  way  talk  to  me.  I  would  like  something 
at  this  moment  dear.'  (R.  H.  passes  parcel  of  articles  to  N.  B. 
J.  to  undo.)  B. — '  And  it  will  help  me  to  keep  clear  . . .  and  in 

a '     Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  who  met  you  when  you  left  me  ? 

Who  met  you  in  the  light  that  you  are  now  in  ? '  B. — '  Didn't 
dad  tell  you  if  not  I  will  in  a  few  moments ..  .just  give  me 
something.  (Articles  felt  by  hand,  which  chooses  spur.)  I 
only  wish  to  get  help  so  I  can  remain.  Yes,  all  right  now  how 
is  Roble — give  him  my  love  and  tell  him  I  am  so  glad  he  is 
doing  well.  And  then  I  have  a  few  things  to  tell  you  about 
this  life '" 

"  Mrs.  J. — '  Do  you  remember  that  day  you  were  sick  and  we 
talked  so  long  ? '  B. — '  Oh  yes  I  do  very  well.  You  thought  you 
knew  about  this,  and  I  remember  you  were  somewhat  troubled, 
but  I  told  you  I  was  going  to  be  all  right.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes, 
Bennie,  you  did  tell  me.  You  said  you  were  better.'  B. — '  Yes 
and  I  was  right.  Believe  me  dear  I  am  all  right.  Do  you  re- 
member you  said  you  did  not  know  what  you  should  do  if 
anything  should  happen  to  me,  and  I  answered  don't  worry  I 
shall  come  out  all  right.'  [This  is  recognized. — N.  B.  J.] 
Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  Bennie,  but  I  didn't  want  you  to  leave  us,  to 
leave  me.'  B. — '  But  I  did  not  leave  you  dear,  don't  you  see. 
I — I  did  not  leave — I  am  really  Bennie  N  J  . . .  J.'  Mrs.  J. — 
'  I  understand,  Bennie,  do  you  want  to  write  your  name  ? '  B. — 
'  Do  you  want  me  to . . .'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes.  Yes,  if  you  can.' 
B.— '  BENJAMIN.'  Mrs.  J.— «  Good.'  B.— '  ROBLE 
J  U  N  O  T.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  that  is  right  Do  you  remember 
your  middle  name?'  [Roble  is  not  his  own  middle  name,  but 
his  brother's  first  name.  H.H.]  B. — '  I  do  write  it  or  speak  . . . 
H...H.'  Mrs.  J.— 'Yes,  that  is  right.'  B.— <HAER  [?] 
£H  H  E  R  t]  '  Mrs.  J.— '  No.'  [Perhaps  an  attempt  to  repeat 
Harrison.  See  Pr.XXIV,374.— H.  de  Q.  V.]  " 

He  had  come  near  it  at  that  part  of  the  report,  which  I 
do  not  quote.  Miss  Verrall  says  (Pr.  XXIV,  139) : 


792  The  Piper-Junot  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pt  IV, 

"  There  is  no  evidence  of  [Mrs.  Piper's]  having  seen  the  name, 
and  some  reason  to  suppose  that  she  is  not  likely  to  have  seen  it." 

"  E.  H.  (to  Mrs.  J.) — '  Let  him ...  let  them  [i.e.  Bennie  and 
Rector.  H.H.]  get  it  themselves.'  B. — '. . .  I  am  tired  a  little . . . 
let  me  rest  and  I  will  tell  you  soon  dear.  Dad  why  are  you  so  quiet 

and  why  don't  you  talk  to  me '  N.  B.  J. — '  Bennie,  I  thought 

you  wanted  to  talk  to  your  mother.  Tell  me  about  the  old  farm 
when  you  can.'  B. — '  Yes  indeed  I  will.  Do  you  remember  the 
time  I  tried  to  tell  you.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Yes.  I  remember.  But 
we've  been  there  since.'  B. — '  Oh  yes  indeed,  that  I  know  too, 
and  about  my  horse  dad  I  think  you  told  me  you  would  not  let 
him  go.'  Mrs.  J. — 'Yes,  papa  kept  him.  Yes.'  B. — 'Yes,  I 
know  it  very  well.  I  only  remind  him  that  I  do  not  forget  any- 
thing he  says  to  me.  Do  you  not  tell  me  about  sister ' 

"  B. — '  Could  you  let  me  see  my  mother  all  alone.'  R.  H. — 
'  Yes,  we  will  go  out  if  you  wish  and  Rector  thinks  well.'  R. — 
'I  think  friend  he  is  confused  a  little  and  could  be  kept  very 
quiet  by  letting  him  be  free  II.  D.'  (N.  B.  J.  and  R.  H.  go 
out.)  B. — '  I  want  to  see  you  Mama,  as  I  did  before  I  came 
here  and  he  confuses  me.'  Mrs.  J. — 'Yes,  Bennie,  I  can  read 
it.'  B. — '  Well  Dearest  then  listen  to  me.'  (Hand  kept  mo- 
tioning and  sitter  said  '  Do  you  want  me  to  write  ? ')  B. — 
'Yes  if  you  wish,  but  I  want  to  tell  you  who  I  met  here: 
whom  I  have  met  here.  I  met  May  the  first  one  and  she  said 
Come  to  me  Bennie  and  I  will  take  care  of  you.'  [His  cousin. 
May  passed  out  only  a  few  weeks  before  his  death. — N.  B. 
J.] " 

" Mrs.  J.— '  Is  she  with  you? '  B.— '  Also  Grandpa.'  Mrs.  J. 
—'Is  he  with  you?'  B.— 'Yes  he  is.'  Mrs.  J.— 'He  did  not 
meet  you,  did  he  ? '  B. — '  No,  he  came  here  after  I  did  Dear — 
yes  . . .  and  I  met  him  also.'  Mrs.  J. — '  And  was  he  not  sur- 
prised to  see  you?'  B. — 'Yes  very.  And  oh  Mama  so 
glad.... Yes  Dear  he  sends  love  to  you  now  and  Grandma 
also.' " 

" 'Pa  did  you  know  Grandpa  was  here  and  sees  you 

now.'  N.  B.  J.— 'Which  grandpa?'  B.—' Grandpa  Junot, 
Dad, — and  he  sends  love  to  you.  I  looked  out  for  him  and 
took  him  to  this  world. . . .  Yes.' " 

Of  the  grandpas,  Miss  Verrall  has  this  remark  to  make 
after  the  next  sitting,  when  Mrs.  Junot  assumed  the  first 
one  alluded  to  to  be  her  own  father  (Pr.  XXIV,  400)  : 

"This  suggestion  was  accepted  by  the  communicator,  who 
did  not,  however,  make  any  statement  showing  to  which  of 
his  grandfathers  he  had  referred 

"At  the  [present.  H.H.]  sitting  of  March  6,  N.  B.  J.  in- 
formed Bennie  that  Grandpa  Junot's  death  had  preceded  his 
own  and  at  the  next  sitting . . .  Bennie  says  that  '  Grandpa 


Ch.  XUX]    Controls  Tend  to  'Accept  Sitters'  Views      793 

Junot  came  here  some  time  ago  and  since  then  I  have  seen  my 
other  Grandpa.' 

"It  seems  to  me  possible  that  it  was  Grandpa  Junot  that 
Bennie  had  in  mind  when  he  first  alluded  to  '  Grandpa,'  but 
that  his  statement  was  confused,  as  often  happens,  by  the  tend- 
ency of  the  controls  to  acquiesce  in  the  sitter's  interpretation." 
— H.  de  G.  V.] 

(Pr.XXIV,388)  : 

"N.  B.  J.— 'Have  you  seen  my  mother?'  B.— 'Yes  I  did 
(hand  points  back  to  written  pages)  and  she  told  me  to  tell 
you  dear  Dad  that  she  had  taken  care  of  you  ever  since  she 
came  here,  and  no  matter  what  you  do  she  will  still  watch  over 
you.  She  told  me  these  words  for  you  and  Helen.  Oh  dear  I 
know  every  thing  so  well.  Do  you  miss  me  at  the  farm  when 
you  go.  And  if  you  do,  you  need  no  more — I  am  there  when 
I  wish.  .  .  .'  Mrs.  J. — '  Shall  we  not  call  back  Dr.  Hodgson  ? 
Do  you  want  him?'  B. — 'Yes  I  do  now.  (R.  H.  returns.) 
B.  H.  J.'  Mrs.  J.— ' "  B.  H.  J."  The  way  he  signed  his  name.' 
[The  signature  of  his  initials  is  wonderfully  like  his  own  sig- 
nature.—N.  B.  J.]  B.— '  I ...  I  am  all  I  claim  to  be.' 

(Waking  Stage.) 

" '  See  the  young  man  with  the  light  hair  up  in  the  clouds 
with  Rector — I  want  to  go  too.  I  want  to  go  too.  Did  you  hear 
the  song  that  boy  was  singing  ? ' 

"R.  H.— 'What  was  it?  What  was  he  singing?'  '  Swanee 
River — Swanee  River.' " 

He  had  reminded  his  father  of  his  singing  this  song, 
two  sittings  before,  and  alludes  to  it  later. 

STH  SITTING.     (Pr.XXIV,389f.) 

March  6,  1900.  Present:  Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.  and  R.  H. 

"  B. — . . . '  Good  night  mama,  dear,  I  just  spied  you  out.  How 
you ...  I  see  you.'  Mrs.  J. — '  I  am  well  Bennie.  Do  you  want  to 
ask  me  any  questions  ? '  B. — '  Yes,  only  a  few,  because  I  have 
something  to  tell  you. ...  I  have  followed  you  many  times  and 
especially  when  you  and  dad  have  been  out  driving. ...  I  almost 
never  see  you  but  that  you  do  not  speak  of  me  and  it  makes 
me  very  happy.  Do  you  hear  me  now . . .  the  Good  Priest  [Im- 
perator]  is  helping  me  to  keep  my  thoughts  clear.' 

"  B. — '  The  one  thing  which  has  troubled  me  more  than  any- 
thing since  I  came  to  this  life  is  the  thought  of  dear  mamma's 
feeling  that  she  could  do  more  for  me.  I  tell  you  now  that 
she  did  all  she  could  and  nothing  could  have  kept  me  in  the 
body.  Do  you  hear  me  dear. . . .  And  the  time  is  coming  when 


794  The  Piper-Junot  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

you  will  see  me  walking  about  with  you  mama.    Remember  I 

tell  you  so ' 

«  B.— '  What  is  the  trouble  with  Aunt  Helen's  teeth.'  (Sit- 
ters laugh  a  little.)  Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  her  teeth  trouble  her. 
That  is  all.  (to  N.  B.  J.)  That's  very  funny.'  B.— 'Well 
grandma  wanted  to  know  and  so  did  I  because  we  saw  her 
walking  around  holding  on  to  her  teeth.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  Ben- 
nie, she  goes  to  the  dentist  very  often.'  B. — '  Well  you  tell 
her  not  worry  about  it  and  I  don't  think  they  will  trouble 
her. ' " 

GTH  SITTING.     (Pn.XXIV,400-412.) 
March  7,  1900.  Present:  Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.  and  R.  H. 

"  B. — '  And  dad  do  you  remember  the  new  stall  you  had  put 
in  for  my  pony.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  Bennie,  that  is  right. . . .'  B. — 
'  I  do  wish  I  could  think  what  I  called  him.  I  know  every  thing 
so  well  before  I  speak,  then  I  lose  it Helen 

" '  I  think  of  the  long  things  that  used  to  grow,  and  we 
got  a  bunch  for  Helen  one  Sunday  before  we  went  home 
and  she  took  them  home  with  her  tied. .  .(pause). .  .tied 
with  a  bit  of  ribbon  . . .  what  were  they  ma  . . .  long  brown 
tops. . . .'  Mrs.  J. — '  Cat  o'nine  tails.  (Excitement  in  hand.) 
Yes,  indeed,  that  is  just  what  they  were  dear  but  I  could  not 
think  the  name.' ...  [Is  that  telepathy  from  Sitter  ?  H.H.] 

" B. — '  I  want  you  to  know  I  have  not  forgotten  every- 
thing dear.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  Bennie,  you  remember  better  than 
I  do.'  [Would  be  accounted  for  on  the  guess  that  the  post- 
carnate  mind  taps  the  rest  of  the  cosmic  mind  more  easily  than 
the  incarnate  mind  does.  This  calls  for  the  usual  guess  that  it 
does  not  so  easily  communicate  to  the  incarnate.  H.H.]  B. — 
'  Well  I  don't  U.  D.  that  very  well,  but  I  think  I  would  rather 
have  you  know  where  I  am  than  anything.  Are  you  happy  dad 
dear.'  N.  B.  J. — 'Yes,  Bennie,  we're  happy  now,  since  we've 
heard  from  you.'  B. — '  Are  you  going  to  get  worried  any 
more? '  N.  B.  J.— '  Not  if  I  can  help  it.'  B— '  WeU  don't. . . . 
I  asked  mama  that  many  times  before  I  came  here  and  I  want 
you  to  say  you  won't.  Speak,  dear.  Say  you  will  not.'  Mrs. 

J. — '  I  will  not,  Bennie '  B. — '  And  will  you  tell  Roble  too.' 

Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  I  will  tell  Roble.  Do  you  know  how  much  he 
misses  you  ?  '  B. — '  Yes,  I  do  indeed  . . .  and  I  only  hope  he  will 
not  any  more.  It  troubles  me  to  have  you  worry,  and  it  is 
the  only  thing  that  does  really  trouble  me  here.  I  know  so  well 
when  you  do  worry,  dear. . . .'  Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  I  will  try  not 
to  worry.'  B. — '  Oh  I  will  be  glad,  but  when  I  tell  you  and 
Pa  and  this  man  [Hodgson?  H.H.]  all  I  know,  I  will  not  have 
to  be  troubled  any  more,  will  I?' 

"  R.  H. — '  He  is  a  little  dreamy  now  ? '    B. — '  Yes,  and  going 


Ch.  XLIX]  TelaTcousis  ly  Control  795 

for  a  moment.'  R. — '  Friend,  I  think  if  there  ia  any  thing  we 
can  do  we  will,  but  if  we  could  ask  thee  to  go  a  little  way  off 
for  a  time  it  might  help  us  to  keep  him.  (R.  H.  goes  out.) 
+  We  will  now  prevent  confusion.  Come  back ' . . .  (Prolonged 
pause.)  B. — '  Yes  dad  here  I  am  again  . . .  my  head  is  getting 
clear  since  that  man  named . . .  called  George  went  away  with 
his  father.'  R.— '  That  is  thy  father  friend.'  [G.  P.'s  father 
is  living :  "  his  father  "  evidently  referred  to  Hodgson's.  H.H.] 
R.  H. — '  I  understand.'  [Apparently  my  father  came  to  give 
some  message  to  me,  and  G.  P.  took  him  away.  His  coming  or 
his  presence  helped  to  confuse  Bennie. — R.  H.]  . . .  B. — [Appar- 
ently had  at  first  mistaken  R.  H.  for  his  father.  Is  this  "  put 
up"?  H.H.] 

TTH  SITTING.     (PR.XXIV,412-.) 
March  19,  1900.  Present:  R.  H. 

" B. — '  Well,   dad,   dear,    are  you   aware  that   I   went 

with  you  and  mama  the  day  before  this  to  see  the  old  lot 
and  its  earthly  mound  [  ?]  [Not  understood. — N.  B.  J.]  [Sug- 
gests his  grave,  his  parents'  excursions  to  which,  he  alluded  to 
very  often.  H.H.]  Well  I  heard  all  you  said,  but  do  not  feel 
disturbed  about  me  any  more  or  in  any  way  because  I  am  bet- 
ter than  you  can  possibly  know.  (Hand  makes  several  curious 
slight  jerks  in  my  [Hodgson's?  H.H.]  direction.)  Are  you 
dad's  friend  ? '  R.  H. — '  Yes,  Bennie.  Your  father  is  well 
known  to  me,  and  he  is  looking  forward  to  receiving  your 
messages  to  him  and  your  mother  through  me.  He  will  write 
you  a  letter,  and  another  time  when  I  get  it,  I  shall  read  it  to 
you,  and  I  hope  also  from  your  mother.  But  you  remember  that 
this  is  near  Boston,  and  they  must  write,  and  letters  will  take 
time.'  B. — '  Is  Boston  East  of  West ...  oh  yes  I  remember. 
Well  I  U.  D.  all  right— I  have  much  to  tell  them  all.'  R.  H.— 
'  Good.'  B. — '  You  are  a  friend  I  know  and  I  will  just  free  my 

mind,  that  is  what  I'll  do ' 

"B. — 'I  can  hear  the  Piano  going  now,  is  it  Helen  (11:26 
A.M.) — yes  it  is — I  must  help  her  all  I  can.  [On  the  afternoon 
of  March  19,  R.  H.  sent  the  following  telegram  to  Mrs.  Junot: 
'  Was  Helen  playing  piano  about  twenty-five  minutes  past 
eleven  this  morning?  Hodgson.'  He  received  the  following 
reply  from  Mrs.  J.,  which  was  delivered  at  his  office  the  next 
morning:  'Helen  was  playing  piano  this  morning  about  quar- 
ter or  half  past  eleven.  K.  H.  Junot.']  [Extract  from  letter 
from  N.  B.  J.  of  March  19,  1900 :  '  Helen  is  usually  in  school 
in  the  mornings,  but  this  morning  she  had  a  cold  and,  as  the 
weather  was  bad,  she  was  allowed  to  stay  home,  and  from 
about  10 :30  to  11 :30  1  she  was  playing  on  the  piano.'] " 

[1This  time  covers  the  hour  at  which  Bennie's  message  was  given, 
allowing  for  the  difference  between  Boston  and  C time. — II.de  G.  V.] 


796  The  Piper-Junot  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

" '  Such  fun  as  Eoble  and  I  used  to  have  you  never 

saw.'  R.  H. — '  Yes,  I  used  to  have  jolly  times  myself,  Bennie, 
when  I  was  a  young  fellow.'  B. — '  Did  you,  did  you  have  a 
brother  like  mine  ? '  R.  H. — '  I  have  a  brother  about  seven 
years  younger  than  myself.  One  of  my  chums  when  I  was  your 
age  was  my  cousin  Fred.  [See  pp.  410  and  557.  H.H.]  Ask 
Rector  to  introduce  him  to  you,  and  he  can  tell  you  about  some 
of  the  fun  we  used  to  have.'  B. — '  Well  I  will,  that  will  be  fine 
for  me.  He  perhaps  can  help  me.  Well  I  am  awfully  glad  I 

know  you.  I  love  music  dearly,  do  you '  R.  H. — '  Yes,  I  used 

to  play  the  violin.'  B. — '  Oh  yes  jolly.  King  of  instruments.' 
R.  H. — '  Yes.'  B. — '  Well,  we  have  great  music  here  I  tell  you, 
can  you  hear  it  at  all.'  R.  H. — '  No,  my  senses  are  too  shut  in.' 
B. — '  Well,  that  is  too  bad,  can  I  do  any  thing  for  you  ? ' 
R.  H. — '  I  fear  not,  thank  you.  I  must  wait  till  I  get  to  your 
side.'  B. — '  Oh  yes  well  that  will  be  all  right  then  won't  it. 
Yes.  Well,  I  begin  to  TJ.  D.  better  I  think.  You  are  in  the 
body.  That  is  it.  All  right.  Now  let  me  tell  you  all  I  can 
before  I  get  too  weak.  (Pause.) 

"  B. — '  What  is  your  real  name  if  you  do  not  mind  telling 
me  before  I  get  too  far  away.'  R.  H. — '  My  name  is  Richard 
Hodgson. ..Hodgson.'  B.— 'Not  HUDSON.'  R.  H  — 
'No,  indeed.'  B.— 'but  H O D . . .  spell  it  again.'  R.  H  — 
'Hodgson'  (Articles  held  up  by  hand,  as  if  to  help  B.  to  stay 
a  little  longer.)  B.— '  HODGSON.'  R.  H.— '  That's  right.' 
B.— '  Good.  I  won't  forget  it.' " 

STH  SITTING.    (PR.XXIY,420-.) 
March  27,  1900.  Present:  R.  H. 

"  B. — '  Well  well  did  you  know  that  I  am  beginning  to  see  you 
more  clearly  friend.  It  is  I  Bennie.'  R.  H. — '  Well,  Bennie,  do 
you  want  to  tell  me  first  anything  that  you  have  ready,  or ... 
(Hand  points  to  where  I  had  letter  on  chair  from  Mrs.  Junot.) 
R.  H.— 'Read?'  B.— 'Yes,  dad's  letter  to  me  oh  do.  Oh  I 
will  do  all  I  possibly  can  to  help  him  to  know  where  I  am  dear 
friend.'  R.  H. — '  Yes.  Bennie,  I  have  a  short  letter  from  your 
mother,  and  I  think  that  your  father  must  have  sent  his  letter 
to  my  office  instead  of  to  my  own  rooms.  So  I  will  read  your 
mother's.'  [Why  shouldn't  Bennie  have  been  able  to  read  the 
letter  himself,  if  he  was  able  to  see  everything  going  on  at  the 
farm?  H.H.]  B. — l  It  will  make  me  just  as  happy,  but  you  told 
me  you  would  didn't  you?'  R.  H. — 'Yes.  I  thought  I  would 
have  had  your  father's,  but  you  know  it  is  a  long  way  off.'  B. — 
'  Yes  from  Boston.'  R.  H.— '  Yes.'  B.— '  Yes  all  right  I  hear 
and  it  is  all  right.' 

"  R.  H.  (reads)  '  My  dear  Bennie : 

'As  I  shall  not  have  an  opportunity  to  talk  with  you  again 
for  some  time,  perhaps  a  very  long  time,  I  want  you  to  send 


Ch.  XLIX]    Letter  from  Mother,  and  Comments  797 

me  a  message  by  Dr.  Hodgson  who  has  very  kindly  consented 
to  receive  it  and  send  it  to  me. 

*  Tell  me  of  some  incident  which  happened  during  the  last 
year  of  your  life  on  earth  with  us,  either  during  the  summer 
vacation  or  the  winter  before.  I  know  that  it  is  you,  but  I 
should  like  to  have  something  which  would  be  a  strong  proof 
of  your  identity  to  other  members  of  the  family.  I  have  not 
yet  verified  all  that  you  told  me  when  I  last  talked  with  you, 
but  some  of  the  incidents  I  remember  well,  particularly  that 
of  the  cat-o'niue-tails,  and  I  well  remember  how  you  and  Roble 
used  to  play  at  the  creek.  Do  you  remember  how  I  always  said 
to  you  "  Be  a  good  boy  ? "  Well,  Bennie,  dear,  still  be  a  good 
boy  and  some  day  we  shall  all  meet  together  and  be  even 
happier  than  we  were  when  you  were  with  us  on  earth. 

'  Your  loving  mother.' 

"  (Hand  assented  and  showed  emotion  at  several  places,  es- 
pecially at  the  '  Be  a  good  boy.')" 

"  B. — '. . .  Oh  that  has  helped  me  so  much,  my  dear  good  friend 
and  tell  her  God  knows  we  will  all  meet  again  here  in  His 
presence  and  be  happier  than  she  can  ever  know  until  she  comes 
and  tell  her  when  she  does  I  will  watch  for  her  and  be  at  the 
door  with  my  arms  open  to  meet  her  and  show  her  where  to 
go.  I  am  so  conscious  of  all  that  takes  place  with  her  that  it 
is  like  being  with  her  all  the  time,  even  though  she  cannot  U. 
D.  it.  I  have  been  thinking  of  Uncle  Gene  a  good  deal  of  late 
and  wondering  if  he  was  coming  over  here  to  meet  me  soon. 
I  shall  know  before  he  does  come.'  [Uncle  Gene  is  an  uncle 
who  is  very  fond  of  young  people  and  to  whom  Bennie  was 
much  attached. — N.  B.  J.] 

"  B. — '  Do  you  remember  dad  dear  anything  about  Uncle 
Thomas  and  how  he  looked.'  [Not  understood  at  all.  No 
Thomas  in  family  connections  at  any  time. — N.  B.  J.]  [Per- 
haps some  confusion  over  the  '  Thomas '  mentioned  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Major.  See.  Pr.XXIV,414.— H.  de  G.  V.]  If 
you  see  Ernest  tell  him  Allie  sends . . .  also . . .  love.  [Ernest 
and  Alice  not  known. — N.  B.  J.]  Do  you  think  I  will  be  better 
able  to  keep  my  thoughts  clear  soon  and  not  jump  from  one 
thing  to  another.'  [The  communicator  seems  conscious  him- 
Belf  that  he  is  not  clear  at  this  point. — H.  de  G.  V.] 

"  R.  H. — '  Yes,  Bennie.  You  will  be  better  later  on.  I  shall 
see  you  next  time,  you  know,  once  more,  I  think  to-morrow. 
and  you  will  be  clearer  then  even  than  now.'  B. — '  Well  that 
is  just  what  this  man  George  told  me.'  R.  H. — 'Yes.'  B. — 
' And  I  begin  to  feel  at  home  with  you  already '" 

9iH  SITTING.    (Pr.XXTV,425f.) 

March  28,  1900.  Present:  R.  H. 

"  Bennie  writes :  (This  is  the  only  time  during  these  sittings 
that  Bennie  himself  acts  as  control.) 


798  The  Piper-Junot  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV, 

(Movements  in  hand,  not  violent,  suggesting  new  control. 
Same  pencil  given.  Fingers  feel  it,  place  it  on  block-book,  so 
that  it  lies  flat  on  book,  lift  it  up  and  down  a  little,  tapping 
various  times  with  it  lengthways  transversely  across  book,  then 
raise  it  and  cast  it  to  the  front  across  the  room.  Fresh  pencil 
offered,  not  accepted,  but  hand  pats  block-book  over,  round  the 
edges  and  over  surface  with  hand  slightly  hollowed,  palm  down, 
patting  with  distal  joints  of  fingers.  Then  hand  is  held  up  as 
if  the  back  were  being  inspected  by  some  one  just  behind  it, 
then  turned  round  as  if  showing  the  palm  for  inspection,  then 
bent  backwards  and  forwards  at  the  wrist,  all  as  if  for  the 
inspection  of  a  person  just  behind.  Finally  the  hand  took  up 
the  ordinary  writing  position  on  the  block-book.  The  time 
occupied  by  these  movements  was  about  from  three  to  five 
minutes.  I  was  about  to  place  the  fresh  pencil  in  the  usual 
place,  between  first  and  second  fingers,  but  the  hand  moved  a 
little,  as  if  rejecting  that  position,  and  seized  the  pencil  be- 
tween the  second  and  third  fingers,  so  that  it  passed  between 
the  proximal  joints  of  the  second  and  third  fingers  and  was 
held  near  the  point  by  the  ends  of  thumb  and  first  finger. — 
K.  H.) 

" '  Yes,  here  I  am  Bennie  and  He  is  teaching  me  how  to 
speak,  this  is  a  queer  place  I  think  and  I  am  wondering  how  I 
got  here  with  you.  I  feel  quite  happy  to  know  I  can  come 
myself.  I  am  Bennie  and  you  are  Mr.  Hodgson.  They  tell 
me  I  am  doing  well.'  K.  H. — '  Yes,  very  good  indeed,  Bennie. 
First-rate ' 

"  B. — '  Tell  me  if  you  hear  me,  do  you  hear  me  or  do  you  see 
me  or  how  do  you  do  ? '  R.  H. — '  Suppose  that  you  went  to  see 
a  lady  when  you  were  in  the  body.  And  she  went  into  what 
looked  something  like  sleep.  Now  suppose  while  she  was  rest- 
ing her  head  on  cushions,  her  right  hand  showed  signs  of  intelli- 
gence, and  you  put  a  pencil  in  it,  and  the  hand  should  begin 
to  write  on  paper,  a  block-book  which  you  place  under  the  hand. 
Now  that  is  just  what  happens.'  B. — 'Well  that  is  queer  too 
because  I  hear  you  and  I  see  you  very  clearly  and  I  talk  to 
you  because  I  am  using  my  own  mind  and  I  see  just  what  you 
are  wishing  me  to  do.'  R.  H. — '  Yes.'  B. — '  Yes  I  like  you  pretty 
well  already  because  I  think  you  are  a  friend  of  dad's  aren't 
you  ? '  R.  H. — '  Yes.  I ...  (Hand  starts  to  write,  turns  to 
Spirit,  then  to  me  to  listen.)  [The  hand  of  the  medium  some- 
times stretches  forward,  as  though  to  some  one  standing  in 
front  of  her.— H.  de  G.  V.I 

"  R.  H. — '  Shall  I  read  his  letter  to  you  or  do  you  wish  first 
to  tell  anything  special  yourself?'  B. — 'I  would  like  to  hear 
from  him  as  it  may  help  me  to  think  more  clearly  than  I  do  now. 
Did  you  hear  that  spirit  [apparently  Rector  or  G.  P.  Possibly 
Imperator,  who  seems  to  have  honored  Bennie  with  more  at- 
tention than  he  gives  most  people.  He  is  a  great  mystery  be- 


Ch..  XLIX]    Letter  from  Father,  and  Comments  799 

cause  it  seems  so  easy,  and  yet  not  quite  possible,  to  make  him 
out  a  humbug.  H.H.]  tell  me  to  look  up  when  He  spoke  to 
me?  (To  look  up  apparently  corresponds  to  stretching  up  the 
hand  to  Spirit.)  '  R.  H.— '  No.'  (I  reach  for  Mr.  Junot's  let- 
ter.) B. — '  He  tells  me  to  keep  quiet  and  hear  you.  Well  tell 
me  something.'  R.  H. — '  Your  father  writes  to  you.  He  meant 
me  to  get  this  before  I  came  here  the  last  time,  I  think,  but  I 
found  it  after  I  got  back  to  where  I  live.  He  says :  "  Dear 
Bennie :  . . .  Roble  says  he  well  remembers  the  seat  that  you  made 
by  the  maple  trees  up  near  the  locust  grove."  '  [N.B.  Throughout 
this  report,  passages  in  full  quotations  ("thus")  are  from  the 
letter.  H.H.]  (Excitement.)  B.— '  Dear  dad.  Go  on.'  R.  H.— 
'  Yes.'  B. — '  Excuse  me  if  I  weep  it  is  only  with  joy.' " 

I  hope  you  got  a  laugh  out  of  this.  You  did  if  you  re- 
member when  "  Excuse  me  if  I  weep "  was  current  slang. 
I  got  the  laugh,  and  yet  I  am  entirely  disposed  to  take  it  all 
seriously. 

"  R.  H. — '  All  right,  Bennie Roble  "  says  it  was  still  there 

last  summer,"  the  seat.  "  Also  Roble  says  that  '  Scrub '  was  the 
name  of  the  game  of  ball  that  you  played  so  much." '  B. — 
'  Did  you  not  see  me  throw  one  when  I  came  in.'  [Perhaps  this 
refers  to  the  throwing  of  the  pencil  across  the  room,  as  above 
described.— R.  H.]  R.  H.— 'You  mean  this  time?'  B.— ' Yes. 
I  often  used  to  do  this  when  I  went  in  against  the  house.'  [He 
played  hand  l>all  against  wall  often. — N.  B.  J.] 

"  R.  H. — '  Also ..."  Roble  wants  to  know  if  you  remember 
the  slide  on  the  bull-pen." '  (Excitement.)  B.— '  Well  I  think 
I  do  and  will  I  ever  forget  it.  Ask  him  who  got  the  worst  of  it, 
— him  or  me.'  R.  H. — '  "  Also  whether  you  have  seen  Sammy."  ' 
B. — 'Well  yes  I  have  and  Sport  also.  [Sport  was  the  name  of 
our  stable  dog  that  died  of  old  age  some  years  ago. — N.  B.  J.] 
Yes,  I  am  glad  to  hear  from  you — Oh  so  glad.  Ask  Roble  if 
he  remembers  who  cut  the  hole  in  the . . .  the  Barn  Yard  fence. 
[Not  recalled. — N.  B.  J.]  and  what  it  was  done  for.'  R.  H. — '  I 
suppose  that's  one  on  Roble?'  B. — 'Well  it  is.  I  have  two  or 
three  which  I  will  just  remind  him  of  occasionally.'  R.  H. — 
'  Yes.  "  Also  do  not  forget  to  tell  my  mother  [This  being  a 
message  from  Mr.  Junot  to  Bennie's  grandparents  in  his 
world.  H.H.]  that  I  received  and  understood  her  loving  words, 
and  tell  my  father  that  I  thank  him  for  the  love  he  sent." ' 
B.— '  He  gave  me  Walter.'  R.  H.— '  Your  grandfather? '  B.— 
'  Yes.'  [Not  correct.— N.  B.  J.]  R.  H.— ' "  and  that  as  I  have 
grown  older  I  have  learned  to  understand  him  better." '  B. — 
'  He  will  be  so  glad  to  know  this  I  tell  you,  he  often  tells  me 
of  dad.'  R.  H. — ' "  and  that  I  hope  to  meet  him  in  your  world 
and  understand  him  better  still." ' " 


800  The  Piper-Junot  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

Sittings  generally  abound  in  explanations  of  this  sort  be- 
tween parents  and  children.  Genuine  or  not,  some  of  it  is 
very  touching,  and  the  weight  of  it  is  very  distinctly  on  the 
side  of  "  evidence." 

"B. — 'Well  you  will  dear  this  I  know  well.  He  often  says 
your  father  is  very  dear  to  me  and  although  he  was  left  more 
or  less  to  himself  I  will  take  him  to  my  heart  when  he  comes  to 
us.'  R.  H. — '  Good.  "  Give  my  love  to  all  our  friends  who  are  with 
you,  and  do  not  forget  to  render  to  Imperator  and  Rector  and 
George  and  all  others  who  have  aided  you  in  communicating 
with  us  our  heartfelt  thanks  and  reverence  for  their  great 
kindness " 

" '  Your  "  ten  cent  script "  is  now  in  your  little  cabinet  in 
your  room.  Daddy  will  keep  it  in  memory  of  you.  Do  not  for- 
get us,  Bennie,  and  let  us  hear  from  you  whenever  you  can  well 
do  so.  With  great  love, 

"  Daddy." 

(Assents)   [i.e.,  hand  does.  H.H.] 

"  B. — '  Do  you  wonder  I  am  happy.'    R.  H. — '  No,  indeed.' 

' Well   I   begin   to ...  (Hand   talks   with   Spirit.)     U.— 

(Hand  talks  with  Spirit.)       He — Rector  says  do  it  so.    U.  D.' 

[This  is  a  good  instance  of  "dramatization."  Bennie  has  not  acted 
as  control  before,  and  is  therefore  unfamiliar  with  this  abbreviation. — 
H.  de  Q.  V.] 

" B. — '  You  may  be  glad  to  know  I  have  seen  a  little 

young  dog  here  who  often  comes  up  and  smells  about  yourself 
. . .  about  you  belonging  to  yourself.'  R.  H. — '  What  kind,  Ben- 
nie ? '  B. — '  A  little  yellow  looking  one  and  looks  like  a  little 
bull  dog.  Do  you  remember  him  ? '  R.  H. — '  I  do  not '. . .  [I  was 
about  to  add  '  remember  a  little  bulldog.'  I  remember  well  a 
little  yellow  mongrel,  very  affectionate. — R.  H.] 

"  B. — '  You  must  be  pretty  bright  I  think.  Did  you  ever  teach 
school? '  R.  H.— « Yes,  I  have  taught . . .'  B.— *  I  thought  so. 
Did  you  like  Algebra.'  R.  H.— <  Yes,  I  did.'  B.— '  I  am  glad 
to  know  it.  I  didn't ' 

"  R.  H. — '  And  I  say,  Bennie,  look  up  my  cousin  Fred.  George 
Pelham  will  help  you,  and  he  will  tell  you  of  the  larks  we  used 
to  have  together  in  Australia.'  B. — '  Well,  that  will  be  jolly,  I 
will.  I  hope  you  will  know  me  when  I  come  again.'  R.  H. — 
'  Yes.'  B. — '  They  are  awfully  good  to  me  here  and  I  am  happy 
as  I  can  be.' 

(Waking  Stage.) 

"  That  black  and  white  dog  was  wagging  his  tail  when  I  went 
in." 


Ch.  XLIX]  Reports  from  Hodgson's  Cousin.   Telesihesia  801 

lOrn  SITTING.    (PR.XXTV,436.) 

April  3,  1900.  Present:  R.  H. 

"  B. — '  I  saw  Mr.  Hyde  and  I  like  him  mighty  well ...  he  is  a 
very  bright  fellow  and  has  been  helping  me  in  many  ways.' 
(I  here  for  the  first  time  thought  of  my  cousin  Fred  Hyde.) 
R.  H. — '  Oh,  you  mean  my  cousin  Fred.'  B. — '  Yes  he  is  your 
cousin  Fred  and  the  gentleman  [George  Pelham]  who  is  speak- 
ing for  me  helped  me  to  find  him.' " 

12TH  SITTING.     (PR.XXIV,438.) 

October  29,  1900.  Present:  R.  H. 

" '  Just  one  word  from  me.  I  am  Benny.'  R.  H. — '  Yes.' 
B. — '  Do  you  remember  me  ? '  R.  H. — '  Oh,  Bennie,  well,  in- 
deed.' B. — ' was  I  who  cured  Helen's  throat  and  I  knew 

it  was  only  a  cold.' " 

[Extract  from  letter  of  N.  B.  J.,  Nov.  14,  1900 :  "  Mrs.  J. 
had  in  September  been  at  the  seaside  where  Helen  had  an  ugly 
sore  throat,  which  caused  her  mother  much  anxiety,  but  pres- 
ently ceased  to  be  serious."] 

13ra  SITTING.     (PR.XXIV,438-9.) 

October  31,  1900.  Present:  R.  H. 

" B. — '  I  was  somewhat  glad  when  they  changed  Helen's 

teacher  because  she  will  gain  by  it.'  R.  H. — '  "  teacher "  is 
that?'  B. — '  Teacher ...  music.  I  am  looking  after  her,  and 
tell  them  all  that  I  will  soon  see  them  here  and  meanwhile  I 
send  endless  love.'  R.  H. — '  I  will.' 

[Extract  from  N.  B.  J.'s  letter,  Nov.  14,  1900.  "  In  the  last 
week  of  September,  Mrs.  Junot  and  Helen  returned  from  the 
East  and  upon  Helen's  objecting  to  the  taking  of  music  lessons, 
she  not  being  very  well,  it  was  agreed  between  them  that  for  the 
present  she  should  go  to  hear  music  instead  of  taking  lessons."] 

16TH  SITTING.     (PR.XXIV,441.) 

February  18,  1901.         Present:  Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.  and  R.  H. 
(Bennie  communicating.) 

[Is  the  following  telepathy,  or  a  put  up  job,  or  something 
else?  H.H.] 

" '  Here  I  am  again  and  I  thought  I  would  ask  you  what  you 
were  trying  to  have  done  with  the  old  gate  this  summer.  Can 
you  think  what  I  mean  ? '  N.  B.  J. — '  No,  I  do  not  understand. 
Where  was  it? '  B.— '  At  the  back  of  the  barn.'  N.  B.  J.— 'I 
don't  understand,  Bennie.'. . .  B. — '  Now  let  me  tell  you  what  I 
do  mean.  I  moan  that  where  the  Bull  pen  used  to  be.  Do  you 
know  now,  dad?'  N.  B.  J. — 'No,  I  don't  understand.'  B. — 
'  Well,  do  follow  me . . .  the  farm  . . .  but  where  we  used  to  go 
out  at  the  barn  there  has  been  a  change  made  in  the  floor  that 
is  what  I  tried  to  think.'...  Mrs.  J.  (to  N.  B.  J.)— '  He 


802  The  Piper-Junot  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pt  IY 

means  in  the  calf  [  ?]  where  you  built  on  that  shed.'  B. — '  and 
I  called  it  gate,  and  it  is  all  open  there  now  and  something 
put  in  its  place.  Now  I  am  trying  to  find  out  what  you  intend 
to  call  it.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  do  you  mean  the  garden  I  had 
made  at  the  back  of  the  house  near  the  barn  ? '  B. — '  No,  I 
know  that  perfectly,  but  it  is  at  the  barn  dear  mother.  There 
are  two  windows  and  I  am  doing  my  best  to  have  you  see  what 
I  mean  dear.  It  is  all  so  changed  to  me.  Dad  did  you  not  take 
away  part  of  the  barn  ? '  Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  we  have  had  a 
chicken  house  built  where  the  corn  crib  used  to  be.'  B. — '  Yes 
of  course,  that  is  what  I  mean  exactly  but  they,  dad  and  Roble 
and  another  man  took  out  the  little  door  leading  into  the  yard. 
Didn't  you  dad?'  Mrs.  J.  (to  N.  B.  J.)— 'Yes,  you  did.'  N. 
B.  J. — '  I  don't  remember,  Bennie.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  Bennie,  you 
are  right.'  B. — '  What  is  the  matter  dad,  are  you  forgetting  ? ' 
Mrs.  J. — 'I  think  he  is  stupid,  Bennie.'  B. — 'Well,  he  never 
used  to  be.' 

"B. — 'Now  there  is  one  thing  more  dad.  Who  was  it  who 
put  up  the  wall.'  N.  B.  J. — '  I  don't  understand,  Bennie. 
Where  do  you  mean  ? '  B. — '  I  mean  out  back  of  the  house  this 
time.  And  what  do  you  call  it ...  a ...  word  [  ?]  is  it.'  N. 
B.  J. — *  Fence.  Do  you  mean  fence?'  B. — 'Yes  exactly  and 
dear  you  will  forget  the  names  of  things  when  you  get  here.' 
[As  old  people  do  ?  H.H.]  N.  B.  J. — '  Yes,  I  understand  that, 
Bennie.'  B. — '  I  like  it  all  though  so  much  better  than  before 
and  I  only  wanted  to  recall  all  I  saw  you  do  and  the  changes 
you  have  made  that  you  might  be  sure  I  was  with  you.  That 
is  aU— U.  D.' 

" '  B. — '  Did  you  hear  me  when  I  called  you  the  other  night  ? ' 
Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  I  cannot  always  tell  when  you  call  me.  I 
think  I  feel  you  near  me.  But  you  know  I  cannot  hear  you. 
What  did  you  say  to  me  ? '  B. — '  I  said  write  to  Roble.'  [Not 
long  before  this  one  evening  his  mother  suddenly  started  up 
and  proceeded  to  write  to  Roble.  Her  motions  were  so  unusual 
in  some  way  as  to  attract  comment  from  others  of  the  family. 
She  said  "  I  must  write  to  Roble."— N.  B.  J.]  " 

17-TH  SITTING.    (PR.XXTV,453f.) 

February  19,  1901.  Present:  Mrs.  J.  and  R.  H. 

"  B. — '  I  am  here,  mother  dear.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  Bennie,  I'm 
glad  to  see  you  this  morning.'  B. — '  Morning,  it  is  always 
morning  dear.  [A  queer  topic  for  faking.  More  like  the  superi- 
ority to  time  indicated  in  dreams.  H.H.]  *  I  am  glad  to  see  you 

*  The  controls  often  protest  against  the  use  of  words  denoting  periods 
of  time,  e.  g.  morning,  week,  etc.,  and  sometimes  appear  unable  to  ap- 
prehend their  meaning.  At  other  times,  however,  they  use  these  very 
words  themselves,  and  their  attitude  does  not  seem  to  be  based  on  any 
consistent  principle. 


Ch.  XLIX]    Control  Begins  to  Regulate  Family  803 

once  more.    But  I  was  sad  to  hear  what  dad  said,  did  he  not 
feel  well.' " 

"  Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  tell  me  about  Helen.  Do  you  not  think 
her  well  ? '  B. — '  Yes,  very,  but  nervous,  dear.'  Mrs.  J. — '  How 
shall  I  take  care  of  her  ? '  B. — '  Do  not  hurry  her,  mother  dear, 
and  let  her  sleep.  She  says  she  wants  to  sleep  more.'  [Helen 
had  for  months  been  inclined  to  sleep  late  in  the  mornings.]  " 

This  is  one  of  the  first  requests  for  Bennie's  advice.  They 
increased  until  he  became  the  family  oracle  on  a  variety  of 
subjects.  Soon  medical  advice  began  coming  in,  which  he 
said  he  got  from  "the  Doctor,"  to  whom  he  alluded  several 
times.  Was  it  Phinuit? 

Or  it  may  have  been  one  of  Imperator's  "  Doctors." 

"  Mrs.  J. — '  Tell  me  now  about  yourself,  what  you  do.'  B. — 
'  Do . . .  well  the  things  I  care  for  most  are  those  I  left  behind 
in  the  body,  but  I  am  contented  here  dear  and  I  live  with 
grandpa  and  grandma  Junot.  He  sometimes  says  he  was  a  little 
difficult  for  the  boys— U.  D.'  Mrs.  J.— '  Yes,  Bennie.'  B.— '  To 
U.  D.  but  he  meant  well  and  loves  them  all  very  much.  I  am 
learning  all  the  time  the  conditions  of  this  life,  the  reality  and 
truth  of  our  having  to  live  in  one  life  to  be  able  to  in  this.' " 

An  old,  old  speculation  on  which  these  new  phenomena 
perhaps  shed  some  light. 

"  Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  bring  a  message  next  time  from  grand- 
ma Junot  to  your  father.  Ask  her  why  she  never  comes  to  us 
at  these  sittings.'  B. — '  But  she  has  dear,  only  I  fear  I  am  a 
little  greedy  and  take  up  all  the  light  dear  mother,  but  I  do  not 
mean  to.' 

"  B. — '  Uncle  Frank  has  just  told . . .  nudged  me  and  said  go 
tell  your  mother  about  Billie,  Benny,  and  see  what  she  will 
say  to  that.'  (R.H.  reads  the  whole  sentence  over  in  a  natural 
manner  as  if  speaking  it  himself  and  not  merely  slowly  de- 
ciphering it.)  B. — '  Yes,  this  is  exactly  right,  how  did  you  do 
it?  How  did  you  happen  to  hear  me  so  distinctly,  I  am  de- 
lighted.' R.  H. — '  Well,  Rector  made  the  machine  work,  and 
although  I  could  not  read  it  at  first,  it  was  all  well  done  by 
him.' " 

18TH  SITTING.    (PR.XXIV,464f.) 

February  20,  1901.  Present:  Mrs.  J.  and  R.  H. 

"  B. — ' do  you  remember  of  my. .  .speaking  of  George? ' 

Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  Bennie,  yes.'     B. — '  He  sends  love  also.'     Mrs. 

J. — '  Yes,  Bennie,  my  cousin  George  you  mean  ? '     (Assent.) 


804  The  Piper-Junot  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

B. — '  He  told  me  not  to  forget  it.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  Bennie,  give 
him  my  lore.'  B. — '  He  used  to  be  so  jolly.'  Mrs.  J. — '  No, 
Bennie.'  B. — '  This  is  a  joke  dear  mother  because  he  was  never 
known  to  smile  . . .  and  we  often  remark  ...  we  remark  it  here. 
And  I  speak  it  in  particular  that  you  may  know  just  who  I 
mean.  [This  cousin  George  had  not  long  been  deceased.  He 
scarcely  ever  smiled  and  during  his  life  this  was  a  source  of 

jokes  in  the  family. — N.  B.  J.] Grandma  Junot  is  so  glad 

to  see  you . . .  She  says  tell  Aunt  Alice  not  to  feel  that  God 
has  been  unjust  to  her,  but  to  feel  that  it  is  better  as  it  is.' 
[For  reasons  well  understood  in  the  family  these  words  are  very 
significant.  It  would  be  difficult  for  our  mother  to  better 
identify  herself  in  words. — N.  B.  J.] 

"  B. — '  Another  boy  cousin  of  mine  here.  He  came  long 
ago.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  Bennie.'  B. — '  Grandma  said  refer  to  him 
too  dear  when  you  speak  because  his  mother  would  be  glad  to 
know.  Do  not  forget  these  things  Benny  boy.'  [We  under- 
stand perfectly  who  this  cousin  is  and  why  our  mother  directed 
that  word  to  be  sent  to  his  mother. — N.  B.  J.]  B. — '  I  was  I 
thought  as  happy  as  I  could  be  when  I  h . . .  owned  the  body,  but 
after  I  left  it  I  found  I  did  not  know  what  happiness  was —  .1 
saw  you  almost  as  soon  as  I  lost  control  of  my  body,  and  I  was 
so  happy,  and  I  was  told  that  I  should  see  clearer  and  clearer 
[clear]  as  time  passed  and  so  I  have,  dear,  and  when  I  have  seen 
you  grieve  I  have  said  Oh  well  it  is  not  for  long,  and  it  is  only  a 
condition  of  the  body.' " 

21sT  SITTING.    (PR.XXIV,475-.) 
January  15,  1902.  Present:  R.  H. 

"B.— 'Pretty  well  are  you?'  R.  H.— 'Yes,  Bennie,  thanks, 
except  for  a  damaged  knee.'  B. — '  Take  a  ride  on  horseback 
when  it  gets  better  it  will  do  you  good.'  R.  H. — '  Thanks,  I 
will.'  B. — '  I'll  go  along  with  you  to  see  that  all  goes  well.' 

He  more  and  more  announces  himself  as  going  with  people 
to  take  care  of  them. 

23o  SITTING.    (PR.XXIV,478.) 
February  10, 1902.   Present :  N.  B.  J.,  R.  H.,  and  later  Roble  J. 

Here  follows  a  farther  indication  of  how  Bennie  was 
becoming  the  family  oracle. 

" '  I  heard  you  and  Roble  talking  about  me.  I  heard  you  say 
he  had  better  study  a  while  longer. . .'  [I  feared  that  Roble  had 
been  a  little  too  much  inclined  to  athletics  in  college  and  I  had 
been  insisting  upon  more  study. — N.  B.  J.].  N.  B.  J. — 'Yes, 


Ch.  XLIX]  Brother's  Sitting  805 

that's  it.  I  told  him  to  study  more.'  B. — '  Yes,  and  he  will  now. 
I  was  especially  attracted  to  that  myself.  I  think  he  has  been 
a  little  behind.'  N.  B.  J.— '  Yes.'  B.— « But  don't  worry  about 
him  dad  he'll  get  there  sure.  I  am . . .  not  so  far  removed  but 
what  I  can  help  him.'  [This  note  of  helping  the  family  and 
everybody  else  increases  to  the  end.  It  is  generally  character- 
istic of  the  controls.  H.H.]  B. — '  And  I  saw  the  fall  he  got 
could  you  make  it  out.'  N.  B.  J. — '  On  the  ice  you  mean,  on 
skates? '  B.— '  Yes.'  N.  B.  J.— '  Yes,  he's  all  right  now.'  B.— 
1  Good.'. . .  N.  B.  J. — '  Bennie,  do  you  want  Roble  to  come  here 

and  speak? '    B. — ' More  than  I  can  tell  you (N.  B.  J.  calls 

Roble,  who  was  waiting  downstairs.)  (Roble  has  entered . . .) 
(Excitement  in  hand.)  Well  well  Roble  I  am  glad  to  see 
you  once  more  my  brother.  Did  you  think  I  was  lost 
Roble — '  R. — '  No.'  B. — '  I  heard  something  and  told  you 
steadily  don't  be  lazy,  R —  study  on  and  I'll  help  you.  got 
it. . . .'  R. — '  Yes,  I  heard  it.'  B. — '  I  hear  you  sounding  where 
I  am.  I  am  right  here  beside  you.  Do  you  remember  the 
joke  I  made  about  the  Bull  Pen?'  R.— 'The  bull  pen 

down  at  V ? '    B. — *  Yes.'    R. — '  I  don't  remember  any  joke. 

Remember  the  slide  down  there  ? '  B. — '  Yes  slide  and  fall.' 
R. — '  No,  I  mean  the  board  slide.'  B. — '  Yes  I  am  thinking  of 
the  same  slide  and  the  fall  you  got  skating.'  [Roble  had  lately 
received  a  bad  stroke  on  the  head  while  playing  hockey  on  the 
ice.— N.  B.  J.]  N.  B.  J.— <  Lately.'  R.— '  I  didn't  fall,  I  got 
hurt.'  B. — '  Yes  I  know  it  well.  Tell  me  are  you  better.'  R. — 
'  I  tried  my  best  to  prevent  it,  Benny.' 

"  *  You  almost  take  my  breath  away — I  am  so  glad  to  see  you. 
I  have  an  idea  you  feel  strange,  but  you  need  not.  Go  on, 

TO     > 

This  all  seems  to  me  strangely  vivid.  The  monosyllabic 
utterances  of  Roble  show  the  awkwardness  of  a  first  sitting. 

There  follow  a  lot  of  trifles  whose  very  littleness  would 
impress  judicious  seekers  of  the  "  evidential "  in  the  old  sense 
— if  later  considerations  have  left  any  such  seekers. 

"  (G.  P.  communicating.)  '  How  are  you  old  chap,  glad  to 
see  you.  What  is  it  H.  want  my  help.'  R.  H. — '  Yes,  George, 
I  think  we  do.'  G.  P.—' I  am  here  on  Deck.  G.P.'  B.—' Keep  my 
thoughts  clear  now.  Do  you  remember  Grandpa  Junot  ? ' " 

24ra  SITTING.    (PR.XXIV,489f.) 

February  11,  1902.  Present:  N.  B.  J.  and  R.  H. 

In  this  sitting  begins  the  incident  of  Hugh  Irving  and  John 
Welsh  and  the  dog  Rounder  summarized  in  Miss  Verrall's 


806  The  Piper-Junot  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

introduction.  There  is  no  space  for  many  details,  though 
I  shall  quote  a  few  later.  For  the  present  we  go  on  to  other 
matters. 

"  B— '  Does  Roble  U.  D.  me  do  you  think.'  N.  B.  J— '  Only 
partly.  He  feels  sure  that  you  are  speaking.' 

"B. — 'Do  you  remember  what  mother  said  about  my  new 
picture.  She  said  I  looked  as  if  I  was  going  to  speak.  Don't 
you  like  it.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Yes,  very  much.'  B. — '  Are  you  tired 
dad  dear.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Yes,  Bennie,  a  little  tired,  too  much 
work  all  the  time.'  B. — '  Don't  let  it  worry  you,  it  will  all  be 
right  soon.  Father  do  you  remember  what  a  stern  man  grandpa 
was?'  N.  B.  J.— 'Which  grandpa?'  B.— 'Your  father.'  N. 
B.  J. — '  Yes,  he  was  stern.'  B. — '  He  is  as  good  to  me  as  he  can 
possibly  be.'  N.  B.  J.— '  And  I  thank  him  for  it.'  B.— '  Father 
he  met  me  when  I  came  and  showed  me  the  way.  I  did  not  know 
him  hardly,  but  he  soon  made  me  know  him  and  took  me  with 
him  home  where  I  am  happy  and  if  you  could  see  us  as  we  are 
you  would  not  doubt  the  goodness  of  God  father.'  N.  B.  J. — '  I 
do  not  doubt  goodness  of  God,  Bennie.' 

"N.  B.  J. — 'Bennie,  the  Alice  over  there  must  be  the  little 
girl  who  didn't  live  in  this  life.  Is  that  right  ? '  B. — '  She  is, 
but  she  lives  here  and  is  with  Uncle  Frank.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Now  I 
understand.'  B. — '  I  am  so  glad  he  would  not  let  me  go  till  I 
repeated  this  for  you.' 

[The  Uncle  Frank  addresses  Mr.  Junot?  H.H.]  " '  N 

speak  to  me  for  God's  sake  and  tell  me  if  it  is  really  you.' 

[What  followed  identified  him He  had  been  dead  two  years. 

We  had  had  many  long  talks  about  a  future  life  in  the  evening 
at  his  home.  He  had  been  much  interested  in  Spiritualism. — 
N.  B.  J.] 

"  N.  B.  J.— '  Yes,  Frank,  it  is  I.'  F.— '  I  am  delighted  to  see 

you — I  took  Bennie's  place  for  a  moment,  a  good  boy  N ' 

N.  B.  J. — '  Go  on,  Frank.'  F. — '  One  of  the  best  I  ever  knew. 
(The  writing  during  communication  from  Frank  larger  and 
stronger.)  tell  Alice  I  am  sure  I  can  remember  everything  soon. 

N how  is  everything  with  you.'  N.  B.  J. — '  All  well, 

Frank,  all  well,  and  Alice  and  the  boy  are  well.  I  see  them 
often.'  F. — '  Give  them  my  love  and  tell  them  I  would  not  have 
left  them  from  choice,  but  it  better  so.  Hear  me? '  N.  B.  J. — 

'  Yes,  Frank/  F. — '  Tell  her  I  felt  sorry  about  the  insurance 

[Not  understood.  N.  B.  J.] 

" '  Are  you  still  at  it ...  in  harness . . .  H  . . .'  N.  B.  J. — 
'Yes,  Frank,  I  am  working  too  hard  still.'  F. — 'Don't 
pay — give  it  up.'  N.  B.  J. — 'I  understand.'  F. — 'You  know 
what  I  mean,  tried  hard  to  speak  before  but  could  not  seem  to 
U.  D.  the  whys  and  wherefores.' 


Ch.  XLIX]      Uncle  Frank.    The  Lost  Dog  807 

"  N.  B.  J. — '  Do  you  remember  our  talks  about  another  life  ? ' 

F. — '  Yes  just  what  I  am  saying  N .  About  this  life  and 

its  possibilities.'  N.  B.  J.— '  Yes.'  F.— '  I  found  all  better 
than  I  ever  dreamed.'  N.  B.  J. — 'Who  came  to  meet  you, 
Frank  ? '  F. — '  Do  you  remember  my  boy.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Yes, 
indeed.'  F. — '  He  is  my  (hand  points  to  Spirit)  right  hand.' 
N.  B.  J.— '  That's  right.'  F.— '  And  we  are  together  God  bless 

him.  Tell  Alice  this. . .'  N.  B.  J.— '  I  will.'  F.— '  N and 

till  we  meet  again  may  God  sustain  you.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Good-bye, 
Frank.  Good-bye.'  F. — '  Going . . .  Farewell . . .  don't  forget 
your...  F  H  Clarke  [?]'  [He  usually  signed  his  name  "  F. 
Clarke."— N.  B.  J.]  ["  F.  H."  are  the  initials  of  his  son, 
Bennie's  cousin,  Frank. — H.  de  G.  V.] 

"  N.  B.  J. — '  Frank,  speak  to  us  again  hereafter  when  you 
can.'  F. — '  Most  certainly  I  will.  (Large  and  emphatic.) 
(Noticeable  contrast  between  previous  large  and  somewhat 
vehement  writing  and  the  quieter  smaller  writing  on  Bennie's 
return.) 

"  B. — '  Father  you  realize  I  know  the  desire  on  the  part  of 
Uncle  F.  to  meet  you  again — that  is  why  I  left  so  suddenly.' 
N.  B.  J. — '  Yes,  dear  Bennie,  I  understand  perfectly.  Here 
is  Hugh  [old  servant,  see  p.  786.  H.H.]  I  called  him  to  tell  you 
himself  about  the  dog.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Hugh,  tell  us  where  to  find 
Rounder,  we  want  Rounder.'  H. — '  Lost  him.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Lost 

him?  Did  you  lose  him?'  H. — 'Yes.  I  lost  him  N and 

as  a  matter  of  fact  I  will  see  that  he  is  returned  to  you.'  N.  B. 
J. — '  All  right.'  H. — '  As  true  as  you  live.  Tell  me  how  is 
everything  with  yourself?'  N.  B.  J. — '  We  are  all  right.  How 
are  you?'  H. — 'Better,  head  clearer,  breathe  splendidly.  Do 
you  know  how  I  suffered.'  [Hugh  died  of  an  internal  cancer, 
but,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  he  never  once  complained  of  pain 
or  of  being  sick  during  his  last  months  with  us.  He  drank 
very  hard  and  we  supposed  that  that  was  the  trouble.  So 
that  what  he  says  here  is  of  great  interest  to  us.  Everything 
that  he  says  is  quite  characteristic  (for  instance  calling  Bennie 

"  Mr.  Ben  ")  except  reference  to  sitter  as  "  N ."  In  life 

this  was  always  "  Mr.  Junot." — N.  B.  J.] 

The  controls  generally  show  a  tendency  to  use  Christian 
names.  Cf.,  G.  P.  to  me,  as  he  never  did  in  this  life;  Phinuit 
to  the  Lodges,  etc. 

"  N.  B.  J. — '  No,  you  never  said  you  were  sick.'  H. — '  But  I 
would  not  tell  anybody  if  there  was  anything  I  hated  it  was 
to  hear  a  man  complaining  about  his  heart  all  the  time.'  N.  B. 
J. — '  Hugh,  I  thought  you  were  drunk  all  the  time.'  H. — '  No, 
not  drunk,  but  mighty  near  it,  the  worst  of  it  was  I  suffered 
more  than  you  know,  but  I've  got  straightened  out  here  and 


808  The  Piper-Junot  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pt  IV 

I  want  to  do  the  best  I  can.' . . .  N.  B.  J.— '  That's  right,  Hugh. 
We  were  sorry  we  didn't  take  better  care  of  you.'  H. — '  Now 

for  everybody.    I  worked 1  worked  faithfully  when  I  could.' 

N.  B.  J.— '  That's  right.  You  did.  (to  R.  H.)  We  had  much 
regret  about  this  man.'  H. — '  Forgive  my  failings  as  Mr.  Ben 
has  already.  Some  day  you'll  know  me  better.'  N.  B.  J. — 
'  Hugh,  I  don't  think  you  had  a  fair  show  in  this  life.'  H. — 
'  Well,  I  guess  you're  about  right  my  friend,  but  I  have  no 
fault  to  find  now  I'm  glad  I'm  living  that's  all  I've  got  to 
say,  and  I'll  find  Rounder  and  send  him  back  to  you.'  N.  B.  J. 
— '  Good,  that's  all  right.'  H. — '  Think  of  me  as  I  am  and  not 
as  I  was  if  you  can.'  N.  B.  J. — '  That's  right,  we  will.'  H. — 
'  Can  I  do  anything  for  you.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Only  help  take  care 
of  Bennie.'  H. — '  Sure  he's  all  right — a  right  good  lad.  I 
often  with  him.  I'll  bid  you  good-bye  now — let  me  know  if  I 
can  do  anything  for  you — H  E.' 

(Hand  makes  gentle  drawing  motion  as  if  pulling  on  some 
delicate  threads.) 

"  N.  B.  J.— (to  R.  H.)— '  Something  wanted  here.' 

"  [Grandpa  Junot  speaks  ?  H.H.]  '  Well.  My  son  glad  to 
see  you.  Do  the  best  you  can.  Gone.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Who  was  it  ? ' 
B. — 'Dad  were  you  here?  Grandpa  said  I  wonder  if  he  is  as 
self-willed  as  he  used  to  be.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Which  grandpa  ? 
Which  grandpa  was  it?'  B.—' Junot.'  N.  B.  J.— '  Yes.'  B.— 
'  Speak  to  him  father.'  (Hand  points  to  Spirit.)  N.  B.  J. — 
'  Yes.'  B.— '  He  is  waiting.'  N.  B.  J.— ' Yes,  father,  I'm  glad 
to  meet  you  here,  and  I  take  it  very  kindly  that  you  look  after 
my  boy  so  well.'  [G.  J.] — '  Do  you  remember  what  you  thought 
about  my . . .  perhaps  you  thought  I  did  not  help  you  . . .  don't 
you  think  so . . .'  [There  were  matters  to  be  regretted  in  the 
treatment  by  the  sitter's  father  of  his  children  and  here,  as  a 
number  of  times  elsewhere,  this  is  indicated  by  the  father  in 
his  brief  communications. — N.  B.  J.] 

"  N.  B.  J. — '  I  was  young  when  you  left  this  life.'  G.  J. — 
'Yes  true  but  rather  stubborn  weren't  you? '  N.  B.  J. — 'Prob- 
ably.' G.  J. — '  Forgot  it.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Do  you  know  about  my 
work  in  this  life  ? '  G.  J. — '  There  is  little  I  do  not  know  and 
I  am  glad  you  have  made  your  life  so  useful.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Thank 
you.'  G.  J. — '  It  is  the  best  reward  I  can  give  you.'  B. — '  Gone 
father.  Father  dear  they  tell  me  I  must  soon  stop  talking.' 
R.  H. — 'Yes,  time's  practically  up.'  N.  B.  J. — 'Yes,  Bennie, 
and  I  shall  not  see  you  to-morrow.  Mother  will  come  alone. 
Don't  forget  daddie.'  B. — '  No  not  for  a  moment — talk  to  me 
father  when  you  go  to  the  grave  and  I  will  U.  D.  you.' " 

Many  intimations  like  this  are  given,  that  those  who  have 
"passed  over"(?)  can  hear  and  even  understand  without 
the  intervention  of  a  "medium." 


Ch,  XLIX]       Hopes  to  Materialize  Visibly  809 

25TH  SITTING.     (Pr.XXIV,502.) 

February  12,  1902.  Present:  Mrs.  Junot  and  R.  H. 

"  '  Do  you  remember  C dear  Mother  ? '  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes, 

Bennie,  we  live  in  C .  What  will  you  say  about  it  ? '  B. — 

'  Are  you  going  to  leave  it? '  [We  had  been  talking  a  great  deal 
about  living  in  the  country. — N.  B.  J.]  Mrs.  J. — '  We  do  talk 
jokingly  of  living  in  the  country,  but  not  at  present.'  B. — 
'  How  can  you  on  account  of  Helen.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Helen  loves 
the  country.'  B. — '  Yes  I  know  but  the  school.'  Mrs.  J. — '  We 
cannot  until  she  is  through  school.'  B.— '  I  thought  so  dear, 
don't  leave  her.  I  heard  all  this  talk  about  going  into  the 
country  dear  but  I  could  not  make  it  clear  to  my  mind.  Got 
it.' " 

Bennie's  gradual  assumption  of  the  care  of  the  family  is 
becoming  plain. 

"  B. — '  Mother  I  am  very  happy  over  here.  They  are  all  very 
good  to  me  and  when  we  go  to  church  we  think  of  you.  I  often 
see  you  and  Helen  together  at  the  place  of  Music.'  Mrs.  J. — 
'  Sometimes,  Bennie.'  B. — '  I  love  to  watch  you  and  hear  you 
talk  of  things  I  used  to  do.  Mother  I  think  you  feel  my 
presence  sometimes — I  try  very  hard  to  make  you  see  me.'  Mrs. 
J. — '  Oh  I  do  feel  your  presence,  Bennie,  but  I  wish  that  I 
might  see  you.'  B. — '  I  wonder  if  you  could.  I'll  try  to  stand 
before  you  very  soon  to  see  if  you  can  see  me.'  (To  R.  H.) — '  I 
am  glad  to  see  you  my  friend,  are  you  quite  well.' 

"  Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  can  you  tell  me  anything  between  your- 
self and  Charlie,  any  incident  that  happened  . . .  tell  me . . .'  B. — 
'  Did  you  say  accident,  dear.'  Mrs.  J. — '  No,  Bennie,  incident.' 
B.—' Incident,  yes.  I  think  so.  [Is  this  faked?  H.H.]  Do 
you  wish  to  help  him  to  know  where  I  am  ? '  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes.' 
B. — '  Well  ask  Charlie  if  he  remembers  the  little  song  I  copied 
out  for  him.  Yes  and  the  walk  we  took  one  evening  in  the  or 
through  the  park  when  we  whistled  the  tune  to  the  song  I  copied 
out  for  him  and  the  laugh  we  had  over  the  discords.' 

"  B. — '  Do  you  remember  Sam.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Tell  me  about 
him  ? '  B. — '  He  is  with  me  a  great  deal — did  you  know  he  came 

rather  suddenly '     Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  Bennie,  send  a  message 

to  his  mother.'  B. — '  He  will  do  it.'  (Hand  points  to  Spirit.) 
Sam — '  I  ask  you  if  you  are  Mrs.  Junot  to  tell  my  mother  I  am 
well  and  happy  and  better  off  than  I  was  in  the  body,  tell  her  to 
keep  the  mo[  ?]mor[  ?]  . . .  can't  hear  it. ..Mansfield  Photo- 
graphs because  they  are  not  good  enough  to  let  go.  I  hope  I 
have  made  it  clear  do  you  remember  Carl  Boardman  . . .'  Mrs. 
J.— 'Is  this  from  Sam?'  S.— '  Yes.  S.  B.'  Mrs.  J.— '  Yes. 
I  will  ask  about  him.  Was  Sam  with  him?'  S.— '  Yes.'  Mrs. 


810  The  Piper-Junot  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pt  IV. 

J. — '  I  will  try  to  find  out.'  S. — '  And  Dan . . .  gone.'  [Sam 
died  rather  suddenly  not  long  before  this  sitting.  His  mother 
upon  reading  this  sitting  said  that  about  this  time  she  and  one 
of  her  sons  had  been  looking  over  and  discussing  a  great  deal  the 
various  photographs  of  Sam  to  determine  which  were  the  best.] 

"  B. — '  And  one  thing  more  dear,  is  Helen  better? '  Mrs.  J. — 
'  Yes,  Bennie,  she  is  much  stronger,  I  think.'  B. — '  Didn't  I  tell 
you  I  would  help  he ...  her.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  and  you  have  kept 
your  word.'  B. — '  I  hope  to  always  dear  and  send  Rounder  back.' 
Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  Bennie,  if  you  can.'  B. — '  If  he  is  in  that  world 
I  can.'" 

27TH  SITTING.    (PR.XXIV,515.) 

April  2,  1902.  Present:  R.  H. 

(Waking   Stage.) 

"'John  Welsh  has  Rounder.'  R.  H.— ' "  John  Welsh  was 
round  her? " '  '  John  Welsh  has  Rounder.  Tell  this . . .  tell . . . 
tell ...  tell ...  John  Welsh  has  Rounder.'  R.  H— '"John 
Welsh  is  round  her  ? " '  '  Has  . . .  has  . . .  It's  I,  Benny,  don't  you 
see  me  ?  I,  Benny. ' ' 

31ST  SITTING.     (PR.XXIV,520-1.) 

November  12,  1902.  Present:  R.  H. 

"  B. — '  I  often  wonder  if  spirits  from  our  world  will  ever  be 

able  to  speak  without  the  light  as  we  often  try  to  do,  but  we 

are  glad  to  welcome  any  of  our  friends  here.     I  can  tell  you. 

Helen  never  seemed  so  well  as  she  does  now.'     R.  H. — '  I'm 

very  glad. ' ' 

"  B. — '  You  have  been  so  kind  to  me  always  I  feel  as  though 
I  had  always  known  you.'  R.  H. — '  I  feel  as  if  you  were  an 
old  friend.'  B.— '  Well  I  think  I  am.' " 

35TH  SITTING.    (PR.XXIV,524f.) 

February  23, 1903.  Present:  N.  B.  J.  and  R.  H. 

(Parcel  unwrapped  and  Bennie's  articles  placed  on  table.) 
"  B. — '  tell  me  Dad  if  you  are  not  better  now.'  N.  B.  J. — 
'  Yes,  Bennie.  I'm  much  better.'  B. — '  I  know  it  dear.  I  have 
been  with  you  all  the  time  since  I  spoke  to  you  here  before.' 
N.  B.  J. — '  Yes,  dear  boy.  I  understand.'  B. — '  I  am  very 
proud  of  Helen.'  N.  B.  J. — 'Yes,  Bennie.  So  are  Mama  and 
Papa.'  B. — '  She  will  be  a  great  comfort  to  you.'  N.  B.  J. — 
'  Yes.'  B. — '  I  know  it.  do  you  hear  me  when  I  call  you  to 
sleep,  dad?'  N.  B.  J. — 'No,  Bennie,  I  do  not  hear,  but  some- 
times I  think  you  are  helping  me.'  B. — '  I  am  glad  you  feel 
me  because  I  am  often  there.  I  remember  Charlie  tell  me  is  he 
going  away  dear.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Which  Charlie  do  you  mean  ? ' 
B. — '  I  am  thinking  about . . .  R  O  ble  and  Charlie  dad.' 
[Roble  and  Charlie  D ,  Bennie's  best  friend,  were  with  us  at 


Ch.  XLIX]    Accurate  Memories  and  Telopsis  811 

our  hotel  on  the  day  prior  to  this  sitting,  Roble  having  met 
Charlie  unexpectedly. — N.  B.  J.] 

"  B. — '  I  forgot  my  horses  name , . .  horse,  almost.'  N.  B.  J. 
—'What  is  it?  What  is  the  name ?'  B.—' What  is  it.  Oh  I 
never  can  U.  D.  it  K.  K.'  N.  B.  J.— '  That  starts  right.' 
(Rector  to  Bennie) — '  Come  on  B.  give  it  me.'  B. — '  K. . . .' 

(Rector  to  Bennie) — '  yes  certainly Louder  dear.'     B. — '  L.' 

N.  B.  J.— '  That's  right.'  B.— '  O.'  N.  B.  J.— '  That's  right.' 
B.— 'N.'  N.  B.  J.— 'That's  right.'  B.— <DI.'  N.  B.  J.— 
'  That's  right.'  B.— «  KE.'  N.  B.  J.— '  That's  right.'  N.  B.  J. 
(to  R.  H.)— '  Can  you  read  it  now? '  R.  H.— ' "  Klondike." ' " 

This  would  seem  to  the  novice  very  "  evidential,"  but  it 
might  easily  be  simply  telepathy.  Chacun  a  son  gout. 

"  B. — '  do  you  remember  the  Sunday  you  and  Mother  and 
Helen  walked  in  the  woods'  N.  B.  J. — '  Yes,  Bennie.'  B. — ' I 
was  with  you.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Yes,  Bennie.'  B. — '  I  saw  Helen 

P  i  ck  some  green  and  take  it  to  the  house Vine.     I  think.' 

[This  walk  when  we  got  the  vine  is  now  well  remembered  but 
was  not  recalled  at  the  time  of  the  sitting. — N.  B.  J.]  [Could 
he  impress  something  he  did  not  remember?  It  often  goes  that 
way.  Can  it  be  mere  telepathy?  H.H.] 

"  B. — '  I  saw  them  plowing  up  out  by  the  barn  dad.'  N.  B.  J. 
— '  When  ? '  B. — '  taking  up  Stone  . . .  Stone.'  [At  the  time  of 
this  sitting,  and  for  several  days  prior  thereto,  workmen  had 
been  engaged  in  moving  a  large  old  barn  at  our  farm.  It 
stands  upon  sandstone  blocks  and  brick.  I  have  not  been  there 
since  the  moving  began. — N.  B.  J.] 

" '  I  am  Hugh  [The  servant  who  drank  so  hard.  H.H.] 
God  forgive  me  why  not  you.'  (At  this  point,  with  the  appear- 
ance of  Hugh  Irving,  the  writing  changes  and  "  there  ia  a 
tendency  to  make  extra  curling  loops  to  the  strokes."  When 
the  sitters  complain  of  illegibility,  Rector  apologizes  on  the 
ground  that  "  he  (that  is  H.  I.)  speaks  queerly."  It  appears 
that  peculiarity  of  speech  on  the  part  of  a  communicator  is 
here  represented  by  peculiarity  of  writing  on  the  part  of  the 
control. — H.  de  G.  V.]  [Seemed  to  speak  straight  enough  on 
p.  807.  H.H.] 

"  N.  B.  J.— '  Why,  of  course,  Hugh.  You're  all  right.  Speak 
on.'  H. — '  I  want  to  know  if  I  can  do  anything  for  you.'  [Ow- 
ing to  the  curious  looping,  neither  N.  B.  J.  nor  R.  H.  could 
make  this  out  at  first.— R.  H.]  N.  B.  J.  (to  R.  H.)— '  Can't 
read,  can  you  ? '  R.  H. — '  One  moment.'  (From  Rector.) — 
4  Wait  a  moment,  Sir.  he  speaks  queerly  friend.'  H.(  ?) — '  want 
to  know  if  I  can  do  anything.  I  long  to  help  you.'  N.  B.  J. — 
'  Who  is  it  speaking? '  H. — '  Your  boy  is  all  right,  how  is  the 
dog  now.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Rounder  is  all  right,  Hugh.  He's  so  glad 


812  The  Piper-Junot  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV. 

to  get  back.'    H. — 'faith  and  I'm  glad  too.    did  Welsh  have 
him ' 

"N.  B.  J.— 'Did  you  give  him  to  Welsh?'  EL— 'No  I  saw 
him  at  Welsh's  house  in  the  body,  and  prayed  him  to  send  him 
to  you.  then  Mr.  Benny  got  hold  and  we  worked  to  get  him 
back.  I  hope  you  keep  him  now — look  out  for  him.'  " 

"  B. — '  Dad  Roble  is  doing  finely  again.  I  never  saw  him 
trying  to  do  better,  he  is  not  lazy  now.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Sure  no  I 
Surely  no ! '  B. — '  he  takes  to  his  work  like  a  soldier  and  is 
looking  forward  to  getting  through,  father  he  appreciates  all 
only  give  him  time  dear  he  is  all  right.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Bennie, 
did  you  not  see  Tommy  with  him  ? '  (Excitement.)  B. — 
'  S  U  K  E  I  did.  Why  do  you  ask  dad.'  N.  B.  J.— '  Because . . . 
because  I  asked  and  you  did  not  answer.'  B. — '  Well  dad  I  don't 
mean  to  do  so  but  I  have  everything  on  my  mind.  When  I  get 
here  and  they  don't  always  U.  D.  what  I  do  say.  you  will  know 
when  you  get  here  how  hard  I  try  to  tell  you  all  that  you  may 
it  is  really  I.'  " 

36TH  SITTING.    (PR.XXIV,536f.) 

February  24,  1903.  Present:  Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.  and  R.  H. 
"B.— 'Got  all  over  your  cold  dear.'  N.  B.  J.— 'Yes,  I'm 
better,  Bennie.'  B. — '  I  know — now  let  me  tell  you  one  thing, 
don't  question  the  right  and  wrong  of  my  returning  because 
there  are  no  wrongs  in  it.'  Mrs.  J. — 'Yes,  Bennie,  it  gave  us 
a  little  anxiety  as  to  whether  we  were  doing  right  in  calling 
you  to  us.'  B. — '  I  heard  it  all  and  it  made  me  uneasy  dear  so 
thought  I  would  settle  it  for  you.'  [We  had  upon  the  evening 
before  been  asking  ourselves  whether  it  might  not  influence  him 
away  from  his  duties  in  his  new  life  to  call  him  back  to  us. 
The  conversation  on  this  subject  had  been  quite  extended. — 
N.  B.  J.] 

"  B. — '  one  thing  about  Helen — do  not  let  her  study  too  hard 
as  she  will  get  through  finely — I  see  it.'  Mrs.  J. — '  I  will  watch 
her  carefully.  She  is  studying  hard  now.'  B. — '  She  will  come 
out  all  right  Mama  I  am  sure.  Only  one  thing  her  throat.' 
Mrs.  J. — 'Her  throat?'  (Assent.)  B. — 'May  trouble  in  a  few 
days  but  don't  mind.  I  see  it  beginning.'  [Upon  our  return 
three  days  later  we  found  her  quite  ill  with  a  sore  throat  and 
under  the  doctor's  care. — N.  B.  J.]  [Teloteropathy  from 
Helen?  H.H.] 

i  "  B. — '  Her  music  helps  me  to  reach  her  at  home.  I  fear 
she  has  neglected  it  of  late.  She  is  going  to  be  a  fine  girl  and 
a  comfort  to  you  all.  Hear  me.'  Mrs.  J. — '  I  think  that  we  do 
not  appreciate  Helen  as  we  do  you  and  Roble.'  B. — '  I  think  it 
so  dear.  I  feel  it  all  the  time.  So  I'll  stand  behind  her.' 
Mrs.  J. — 'Bennie,  it  is  not  that  we  do  not  love  her  as  well.' 


Ch.  XLIX]    Good  Advice.     Control  Growing  Up  813 

B. — 'I  know  perfectly  dear — I  U.  D.  just  how  you  feel,  but 
cling  to  her — I  love  her  dearly  dear.  I  see  her  thoughts  are  a 
little  Stubborn  but  do  not  mind.  She  will  outgrow  it.' . . . 
Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  Bennie,  I  think  you  are  right.'  B. — '  But  you 
humor  her  a  great  deal  and  it  is  better  so.  [Anybody  who 
knows  adolescent  girls,  will  appreciate  Bennie's  wisdom.  H.H.] 
Koble  is  doing  splendidly.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  I  saw  him  yesterday.' 
B. — '  I  think  he  is  growing  fine  and  handsome  as  well  as  the 
improvement  to  his  mind.' " 

As  I  go  through  this  for  the  third  time,  I  am  impressed 
that  Bennie  is  growing  up.  This  sitting  is  nearly  four  years 
later  than  the  first  one. 

"  Mrs.  J. — ' . . .  Do  you  know  all  that  happens  to  us,  and 
that  interests  us  ? '  B. — '  All  to  my  immediate  family  yes. — i.e. 
you  dad  Roble  Helen.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  but  others  do  not  con- 
cern you.  But  you  cannot  always  tell  what  happens  to  other 
people  that  you  know  ? '  B. — '  Yes  and  no.  I  can  if  I  think 
specially  about  any  one  friend  and  wish  to  know.  Otherwise 
I  do  not.' 

"  (From  G.  P.) — '  I  don't  think  he  quite  remembers  him- 
self. H.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Well,  George,  don't  bother  about  this  now. 
Talk  to  him,  and,  if  possible,  bring  it  to  his  mother  next 
meeting.'  G.  P.—'  Good  enough.  I  will'  Mrs.  J.  (to  R.  H.) — 
*  Tell  him  to  ask  Hugh.'  G.  P.—'  Sure  I  will.  He's  got  the 
boy.' " 

Mrs.  J.  had  grown  intimate  with  G.  P.  But  these  two 
expressions  are  not  like  him.  The  second  one  is  more  like 
Hugh,  but  it  must  be  G.  P/s,  referring  to  Bennie,  for  he 
adds :  "  He's  got  the  boy,"  meaning  young  Lawrence  L.,  for 
whom  Mrs.  Junot  had  asked,  for  his  mother's  sake,  several 
sittings  before,  and  Bennie  had  said  he  would  find  him. 

"  '  John  Junot  gave  him  to  me.      Mr.  G. over  there. . . . 

Mr.  G over  there.' "     [This  is  the  name  of  an  old  friend  of 

our  family  lately  deceased,  and  about  the  last  person  of  whom 
we  would  think  in  connection  with  the  sitting. — N.  B.  J.] 

37TH  SITTING.    (PR.XXIV,545f.) 

February  25,  1903.  Present:  Mrs.  J. 

"B.— 'do  you  think  I  like  the  horse.'  Mrs.  J.— 'What  do 
you  mean,  Bennie?'  B. — 'the  Pony  dear.  I  see  him  often.' 
Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  I  don't  understand.  What  pony  do  you 
mean  ? '  B. — '  I  mean  my  Pony.  Walter.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes. 
He  is  very  old  now.'  B.— '  Yes  but  fat'  Mrs.  J.— '  Yes.  Very 
fat.' " 


814  The  Piper-Junot  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

" B. — ' Mother  dear  do  you  remember  Marion.  Mar... 
i  o  n.'  Mrs.  J. — '  I  think  that  I  know  whom  you  mean,  but  the 
name  is  not  quite  right.'  B. — '  did  I  speak  it  too  fast.'  Mrs. 
J. — '  Bennie,  who  is  Marion?'  (Hand  points  to  Spirit.)  Mrs. 
J. — '  She  is  standing  over  there  ?  (Assent.)  Who  is  she  ? '  B. — 
'  She  is  my  cousin.'  [Correct. — N.  B.  J.]  Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  to 
whom  does  she  belong?'  B. — 'Uncle  Frank.'  Mrs.  J. — 'Yes, 
that  is  right.  Tell  me  more  about  her.'  B. — '  M  a  r  y  . . .  M  a 
. . .  li  [  ?]  She  wants  very  much  to  send  her  love  and  greetings 
to  Aunt  Alice.  I  brought  her  here.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  Bennie. 
That  is  one  thing  that  I  asked  from  you  yesterday.  Bennie 
yesterday  you  said  you  would  go  and  awaken  her.  What  did 
you  mean  by  awaken?'  B. — 'make  her  U.  D.  how  to  speak  to 
you  here  dearest  Mother.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  Bennie.  Have  you 
anything  more  to  tell  me  of  her?'  B. — '  Oh  yes  she  is  just  be- 
ginning to  U.  D.  what  we  want  of  her.  She  sees  Aunt  Alice 
often  and  yet  she  could  not  U.  D.  this  way  of  speech.' " 

"  R.  H. — '  Bennie,  perhaps  better  do  what  you  can  with  Alice's 
daughter  and  afterwards  talk  freely  with  your  mother.' 
B. — '  She  is  so  glad  to  U.  D.  now.  I  talked  and  talked  with 
her  insisting  upon  her  coming  with  me  here  now.'. . .  Mrs.  J. — 
'  Bennie,  what  is  she  doing  in  your  world  ? '  B. — '  She  looks 
after  some  of  the  other  children  here.  I  wish  I  could  make 
R  [ector]  U.  D  what  I  mean. ...  do  you  remember  when  she 
passed  out,  Mother.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes.'  B. — '  do  you  U.  D.  how 
she  looks  now. . . .  what  did  Aunt  Alice  mean  by  saying  if  I 
were  here  why  did  she  not  come  too.'  [His  Aunt  Alice  had 
made  just  that  statement  to  N.  B.  J.  and  that  led  to  our  in- 
sistence at  this  sitting  that  a  message  should  be  sent  by  her 
daughter.— N.  B.  J.] 

"  Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  she  thought  perhaps  her  daughter  had  for- 
gotten about  her.'  B. — '  Oh,  if  you  could  hear  her  speak  of  her 
you  would  not  think  it.  I  know.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  tell  me  how 
she  looks.'  B. — '  She  looks  much  as  she  did  when  she  came 
here,  her  eyes  are  lovely  and  bright.' " 

[Extract  from  Mrs.  Clarke's  letter,  March  23,  1903.— "  Her 
eyes  and  her  very  sweet,  gentle  disposition  were  her  only 
beauties.  She  was  remarkably  kind  to  the  younger  children 
and  Bennie  said  that  was  her  office  now."] 

"  B. — '  She  hears — she  is  laughing  at  my  words  about  her. 
I  can't  tell  you  just  how  she  does  look  as  she  stands  here,  do 
you  remember  a  little  round  photo  of  her.'  Mrs.  J. — 'I  will 
ask  Aunt  Alice,  Bennie.'  B. — '  it  was  taken  when  she  was  a 
little ...  a  very  little  girl.'  [Her  mother  has  only  two  photos 
of  her — one  of  which  is  a  baby  picture  and  has  always  been  in 
a  small  round  walnut  frame. — N.  B.  J.] 

"  R.  H. — '  Bennie,  does  she  look  now  older  than  you  ? '  B. — 
'  Yes  a  little.  She  came  here  first.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes.  That  is 


Ch.  XLIX]    Professes  Minute  Care  of  Family  815 

right.'  B. — '  some  time  before.'  [She  died  two  years  before 
Bennie  was  born. — N.  B.  J.] 

"  B. — '  Mother  what  do  you  think  of  the  new  house  is  that  a 
Piazza.'  Mrs.  J. — 'Yes,  Bennie.  We  have  built  a  piazza  at 
one  end,  and  a  new  room  for  Helen.'  B. — '  The  piazza  con- 
fused me  a  little.  I  mistook  it  for  a  Shed.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes. 
Before  it  was  finished  it  looked  like  a  shed.'  B. — '  You  U.  D. 
just  what  I  am  thinking  about  all  the  time.  I  am  so  near 
you.  do  you  know  dear  I  saw  the  gate  too.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Which 
gate,  Bennie?'  B. — '  the  new  one.'  Mrs.  J. — 'No,  Bennie. 
We  have  no  new  gate.'  B. — '  It  is  new  to  me.  The  one  out 
back  of  the  barn.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  we  have  one  there,  Bennie. 
I  had  a  new  fence  built  and  a  gate.'  B. — '  Yes  I  know.  I 
like  it  too.  You  hear  me  well.' " 

"  Mrs.  J. — ' . . .  Bennie,  what  can  I  do  to  bring  you  near  me  ? ' 
B. — '  pray  for  me.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes.  Do  you  hear  me  when 
I  ask  you  for  help?'  B. — 'Yes  I  often  do.  I  know  a  great 
deal  that  goes  on  with  you  dear,  and  when  grandma  says  you 
humor  Helen  I  think  she  don't  U.  D.'  Mrs.  J.— '  Yes  ? '  B.— 
'  I  help  you  with  her  often.'  Mrs.  J. — '  I  want  you  to  watch 
over  Helen  and  Roble  and  help  them  all  you  can.'  B. — '  I  will 

I  do.    don't  you  see  how  well  R. is  doing,    lately  dear,   at 

College.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes.  Are  you  helping  him  ? '  B. — '  Always, 
there  was  a  time  when  he  got  a  little  careless  but  he  is  getting 
over  it.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes.  He  is  more  interested  in  his  college 
life  now.'  B. — '  We  all  prayed  for  it  here.  Mother  do  you 
U.  D.  the  philosophy  of  prayer.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Just  what  do  you 
mean,  Bennie?'  B. — 'how  necessary  it  is  to  pray  for  what 
you  wish.  I  U.  D.  it  since  I  came  to  this  life.'  Mrs.  J. — 
'  Yes,  Bennie.  I  shall  pray  more  after  this.'  B. — '  prayer  is 
everything  to  us  here.' " 

"  Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  do  you  often  see  Grandma  Junot? '  B. — 
'  Oh  yes  she  is  with  me  nearly  all  the  time.  Mother  do  you 
realize  what  a  good  woman  she  really  is.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes.  She 
had  much  trouble  in  this  life,  but  she  always  believed  in  the 
goodness  of  God.'  B. — '  Yes  and  she  does  now.  She  often  says 
Bennie  dear  we  must  help  our  beloved  ones  on  the  earth  and 
teach  them  to  be  more  patient.'  [Characteristic  of  his  grand- 
mother to  an  exact  degree. — N.  B.  J.] 

Bennie's  "philosophy  of  prayer,"  and  his  partiality  for 
his  grave  (which  my  selections  do  not  quite  reproduce),  like 
many  of  the  ideas  and  tastes  depicted  by  Stainton  Moses, 
seem  to  be  a  relic  of  earthly  views.  Those  who  ostensibly 
speak  from  a  postcarnate  life  generally  indicate  that  their 
incarnate  beliefs  and  interests  survive  with  them.  So  nobody 


816  The  Piper-Junot  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Ft  IV. 

who  is  not  interested  in  prayers  and  graves  need  feel  dis- 
couraged. 

"  B. — ' . . .  look  out  for  the  new  horse.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  Bennie. 
The  one  papa  bought  for  Roble  ?  Is  he  not  safe  ? '  B. — '  Oh  yes 
only  he  is  pretty  fast  I  think.'  Mrs.  J. — 'Yes?  Shall  we  not 
keep  him  ? '  B. — '  Oh  yes  I  would  dear,  do  not  be  alarmed 
he  will  be  all  right  sure.' " 

44TH  SITTING.    (PR.XXIV,564f.) 

December  16,  1903.  Present:  B.  H. 

"  B.— '  Ask  Roble  if  he  got  his  hat  into  the  paint.'  R.  H— '  I 
will.'  [Roble  painted  his  old  straw  hat  green  and  wore  it  about 
the  farm  all  summer. — N.  B.  J.] 

"  B.  [to  Hodgson] — '  Oh  friend  can  you  U.  D.  what  this  all 

means  to  me 1  often  hear  and  see  things  taking  place  at 

home  and  fail  to  report  them  here.'  R.  H. — '  Why,  Bennie,  I 
shall  be  glad  and  your  father  and  mother  would  be  overjoyed 
for  you  to  tell  me  all  you  see,  especially  immediately.'  B. — 
'Yes  well  this  is  a  little  thing  but  I  noticed  it — shall  I  tell 
you?  I  saw  Roble  fussing  about  his  clothes  the  other  day 
and  I  wondered  what  it  was  all  about  when  I  learned  that  he 
was  trying  on  a  new  suit  of  clothes  which  did  not  fit  to  suit 
him  and  he  took  them  back. ...  I  stood  there  and  watched  him 
for  some  time.'  [At  Thanksgiving  time  in  New  York  Roble 
tried  on  his  dress  suit  which  his  mother  had  brought  to  him. 
He  said  it  needed  some  changes  and  his  mother  brought  it 
home  to  have  it  changed  at  his  request. — N.  B.  J.] 

"  B. — '  He  is  going  home,  and  I  with  him.  [Roble  starts 
home  from  College  to-morrow,  Dec.  22. — N.  B.  J.]  Grandma 

Junot  says.  N .  [Mr.  Junot.  H.H.]  is.  getting  rather 

tired,  and  should  try  and  rest  more.  How  is  Rounder, 
stiff,  very  stiff.'  R.  H. — 'Do  you  mean  old?'  B. — 'in  his 
legs.' 

" B. — '  I  often  pat  him.  and  talk  to  him.  I  think  he 

sees  me.  really  I  do.'  R.  H. — '  Does  he  wag  his  tail  ? '  B. — 
'  Yes  and  sniffs  at  me  when  I  approach  him.'  " 

This  is  far  from  the  only  case  where  animals  appear  to  see 
spirits.  Cf.  under  telepathic  visions,  Chapter  XVIII. 

46TH  SITTING.     (PR.XXIV,571.) 

January  11,  1904.  Present:  R.  H. 

"  B. — '  I  may  make  some  few  mistakes.  I  do  not  claim  to 
do  otherwise  when  I  see  so  much.' " 

Apparently  much  more  than  is  possible  in  this  life.  Con- 
stant telopsis  and  teloteropathy. 


Ch.  XLIX]    Advice  from  Telesthetic  Knowledge  817 

47ra  SITTING.    (PR.XXTV,573f.) 

February  22, 1904.      Present:  N.  B.  J.,  E.  B.  J.,  and  R.  H. 

"  B. — '  I  am  glad  Mama's  better.  I  also  see  Helen  every  day 
of  her  life.  I  think  she  is  is  [evidently  for  a]  fine  great 
girl.' 

"  N.  B.  J. — '  Yes.  She  works  over  her  music  all  the  time.' 
(Excitement  in  hand.  Pencil  scrabbles  heavily  round  and  round 
in  one  spot.)  B. — '  that  is  what  I  long  for  her  to  do  U.  D.'  N. 
B.  J. — '  Yes,  Bennie.  We  thought  you  helped  her.'  B. — '  I  do  I 
do  I  will  I  will.  Music  is  the  inspiration  of  the  soul,  dad.' 
N.  B.  J.— '  Yes . . .'  B.— '  I  wanted  you  to  U.  D.  how  happy  it 
all  made  me.  can't  you  tell  her  I  love  to  hear  her  play  & 
practise.'  N.  B.  J.— '  Yes,  Bennie.  That's  right.'  B.— '  Dad  is 
that  coat  Blue.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Yes,  with  red  inside.' " 

"  B. — '  Do  you  U.  D.  what  a  beautiful  place  this  is  dad.' 
N.  B.  J. — '  We  do  not  fully  understand,  Bennie.  Tell  us  when 
you  can.'  (Hand  points  to  Spirit.)  B. — '  Grandma  Junot. 
says,  in  a  little  while  you  will  all  be  here,  won't  that  be  great.' 
N.  B.  J. — '  Splendid,  Bennie,  when  we  all  meet  together  again.' 
B. — '  Do  the  best  you  can  dad  &  don't  worry  about  anything 
take  care  of  Mama  &  Helen  &  the  rest  will  all  go  right  until 
you  come  over.' 

" '  Dear  Mother . . .  When  I  come  to  you  in  your  dream 

do  not  be  afraid :  I  shall  only  give  you  strength  to  U.  D.' 

"  R. — * Bennie.      Are    you    ever   with    me  ? '      B. — '  I 

should  say  I  was.    how  did  I  know  about  your  suit  if  I  am 
not  with  you  tell  me  Roble  ? ' ' 

48TH  SITTING.    (PR.XXTV,584f.) 

February  23, 1904.      Present:  N.  B.  J.,  R.  B.  J.,  and  R.  H. 

"  B.— '  Roble  did  you  have  Frank's  knife.'  R.— '  No,  Bennie. 
I  don't,  know  about  his  knife.'  B. — '  tell  Aunt  to  give  it  to  you 
please.'  R.— '  All  right,  Bennie.'  B.— '  Will  you.'  R.— 'Yes, 
I  will  tell  her.'  B. — '  he  says  so.  don't  forget  it  I  beg  of  you.' 

"  B. — '  Papa  dear  tell  me  what  she  [Helen.  H.H.]  got  so 
excited  over,  the  other  day  Was  it  essay.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Yes. 
I  think  it  was  something  she  was  going  to  write  about.'  B. — 
'  I  heard  her  fuming  about  it,  but  don't  mind  her  she  will  get 
over  it  when  she  gets  through  school  U.  D.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Yes, 
Bennie.  She  fusses  a  good  deal.'  B. — '  Well  I  think  I  know  it 
dad.  You  see  I  am  doing  all  I  can  to  help  her  &  I  do  think 
she  is  improving  don't  you  ? '  N.  B.  J. — '  Yes.  indeed.  She's 
changing  every  day,  now.'  B. — '  Yes  &  I  do  wish  Aunt  Alice 
•would  not  think  her  lazy.  She  is  not.  but  she  can't  do  every- 
thing. . . .  her  music  I  want  kept  up  U.  D.  I  never  was  good  at 
preaching  but  I  know  perfectly  well  what  is  best  for  her.'  N. 


818  The  Piper-Junot  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

B.  J. — 'Yes,  Bennie.  We'll  try  to  keep  up  her  music.'  B. — 
'they  [say]  Mama  humors  her  too  much  but  I  don't  think  so. 
She  is  a  good  girl  &  if  she  is  nervous  she  can't  help  it.' " 

Bennie  is  gradually  taking  charge  all  around. 

" B. — '  how  would  you  like  to  join  me  R.'    R. — '  Yes, 

I  would  like  to  see  you  again  very  much,  Bennie.'  B. — '  I  tell 
you  R.  it  is  not  all  over  with  us. ...  be  sure  &  tell  Aunt  Alice 
we  shall  help  her  but  she  must  give  you  the  knife,  the  next  time 
I  see  you  here  Pa.  I  want  you  to  bring  something  belonging 
to  her.  Will  you?'  N.  B.  J.— 'Yes,  I  will,  I  will.'  B— 'It 
will  help  us  [i.e.,  her  husband  and  Bennie  in  communicating. 
H.H.]  so  much.  You  cannot  U.  D.  but  we  can.' 

" ' B. — '  tell  me  did  you  like  the  book  dad  gave  you  ? ' 

R. — '  Yes,  I  am  reading  it  now.'  B. — '  Isn't  it  fine.'  R. — '  Yes, 
I  like  it  very  much  so  far.'  B. — 'keep  straight  on.  &  I  will 
watch  over  your  shoulder.' " 

49TH  SITTING.    (PR.XXIV,595f.) 

February  24,  1904.  Present:  R.  H. 

"  R.  H. — '  I  have  a  short  letter  to  Bennie  from  his  mother 
which  was  intended  for  his  father  to  bring,  but  reached  him 
only  after  he  left.  (Hand  points  to  Spirit.  Cross  in  air.) 
Please  give  it  him  as  he  hath  asked  specially  for  it  several 
times  during  this  intervening  period.  We  will  bring 
him '" 

Above  three  lines,  evidently  from  Rector,  like  most  of  the 
talk  of  the  Imperator  crowd,  have  a  very  manufactured  look, 
but  there  is  considerable  that  has  not. 

"  B. — '  here  is  George  perhaps  you  would  better  greet  him  too. 
he  has  been  a  good  friend  to  me,  and  when  the  light  has  been 

especially  drawn  upon  by  myself  he  has  been  my  support ' 

R.  H. — '  Yes,  George,  very  grateful  for  all  your  help.'  (G.  P. 
communicating.) — '  Just  say  good  morning  that  will  do.  you 
know  I  U.  D.  it  is  only  to  please  the  boy  U.  D.' " 

50TH  SITTING.    (PR.XXTV,597f.) 

June  27,  1904.          Present:  Mrs.  J.,  Miss  Helen  J.  (first 
time),  and  R.  H. 

"  B. — '  I  see  some  one  in  the  body  with  you.  I  think  . .  .* 
Mrs.  J.  (to  H.  J.) — '  Move  over  a  little.'  (H.  J.  draws  closer 
to  table.)  B. — '  it  is  my  sister ...  Oh  I  am  so  glad  you  are 
here,  tell  me  you  are  glad  to  see  me  I  am  so  glad  you  got 
through  so  nicely.  I  saw  Roble  too  &  I  helped  you  both  did  you 
TJ.  D.  it.'  H.  J.— '  Yes,  Bennie.  I  am  glad  to  be  here.'  B.— '  I 
U.  D.  you  do  not  see  me  but  I  look  about  the  same.  You  look 


Ch.  XLIX]    Has  Assumed  General  Care  of  Family        819 

much  larger  Helen  haven't  you  grown '  [If  he  had  had  so 

much  telopsis  about  the  farm,  why  not  about  Helen?  H.H.] 
H.  J. — '  Yes.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  you  know  several  years  have 
passed  since  you  left  us,  and  Helen  is  almost  a  young  lady.' 
B. — '  I  U.  D.  isn't  that  fine  ?  I  am  glad  she  is  so  well  &  you  also 
mother  dear.  I  hope  you  will  keep  on  with  your  studies  Helen  & 
do  all  you  can. . . .'  H.  J. — '  I  thought  often  of  you  when  away 
at  school.'  B. — '  I  was  often  with  you  when  you  did  not  know 
it.  I  am  glad  Roble  is  through  &  I  am  glad  he  is  to  be  with 
dad.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes.  Your  father  could  not  be  with  us  to-day. 
Do  you  think  that  he  is  well  ? '  B. — '  No  not  so  well  as  I  wish. 
I  think  he  is  very  tired  &  needs  rest  greatly.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Can 
you  not  influence  him  to  take  a  rest  ? '  B. — '  Uncle  Frank  & 
I  are  both  praying  for  this.  We  will  make  him  do  so.'  Mrs. 
J. — '  I  wish  him  to  take  a  long  rest  this  summer.'  B. — '  Yes 
so  do  we.  &  I  think  he  will.  I  am  much  concerned  about 
him  &  I  have  been  for  some  weeks  I  think.' 

" Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  is  the  farm  the  best  place  for 

him  ? '  B. — '  Yes  for  the  present,  tell  him  to  let  repairs  go 
&  rest  this  summer.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  I  will  do  so.  Is  that  all 
he  needs,  rest  alone  ? '  B. — '  Yes  . . .  don't  let  him  take  anything. 
he  is  all  right  except  very  tired,  he  is  overdoing  all  the  time. 
&  his  talking  tires  him  very  much.'  [The  weariness  of  N.  B.  J. 
is  most  marked  in  consultations.  Talking  seems  to  be  the  main 
source  of  the  weariness. — N.  B.  J.] 

"  Mrs.  J. — '  He  is  very  much  troubled  about  some  of  his 
business  affairs.'  B. — '  Well  dear  he  ought  not  to  be  because  dad 
will  be  all  right  I  know  this.' 

"  B. — '  Helen  what  made  you  let  Klo  n  d  i  k  e  run  away . . .' 
Mrs.  J.  (to  H.  J.) — '  Tell  him  that  he  didn't  run  away — did 
he?'  H.  J— 'I  don't  remember....'  B.— 'he  did.'  H.  J.— 
'  Last  summer  ? '  B. — '  Yes. . . .'  Mrs.  J. — '  He  did  not  behave 
very  well,  Bennie.'  B. — '  he  turned  everything  upside  down. 
I  saw  him.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  I  think  that  was  Roble's  horse 
that  ran  away.'  B. — '  So  it  was.  that's  so.  I  remember  now 
but  mine  kicked  up  a  good  deal.'  H.  J. — 'Yes,  he  was  very 
mean  last  summer.'  B. — '  Very  what  Helen  ? '  H.  J. — '  Mean.' 
B. — '  do  you  mean  that.'  H.  J. — '  He  was  ugly,  and  my  driving 
worried  him.'  B. — '  Oh  yes.  I  TJ.  D.  what  you  mean,  but  he 
is  getting  old  . . .'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  we  thought  best  to  sell  him, 
because  your  father  was  afraid  he  would  hurt  Helen.'  B. — '  I 
think  he  got  that  from  me.  because  I  tried  to  tell  him  to  look 
out  for  him  &  I  say  it  now  more  than  ever.  Better  let  him  go 

on  leave  him  alone  don't  try  to  drive  him  any  more ' 

B.— '  Helen  what  do  you  wish '     Mrs.  J.  (to  H.  J.)— '  Ask 

him  now — tell  him  you're  going  to  school  next  year.'  H.  J. — 
'I  expect  to  go  back  to  school  next  year;  is  it  best?'  B. — 'I 
am  very  glad  &  shall  help  you  all  I  can . . .  don't  worry  about 


820  The  Piper-Junot  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IY 

your  studies  Helen  dear  you  will  get  on  first  rate  I  know  you 
will.  I  know  how  you  feel  but  don't  mind  stick  to  it  &  you 
will  be  glad  some  time.'  Mrs.  J. — '  She  did  not  feel  very  well 
this  spring  while  at  school.'  B. — '  I  know  it,  but  do  be  careful 
about  those  colds.  Helen  &  never  mind  you  will  be  better  off  for 
going  back.  You  don't  think  so  now.'  H.  J. — '  Yes,  I  do.  I 
want  to  go  back.'  B. — '  I  am  glad  very  very  glad.  Roble  can 
help  you  now  he  is  through.'  Mrs.  J. — '  He  will  help  Helen  this 
summer.  Is  that  what  you  mean  ? '  B. — '  Yes  &  help  her  for  the 
next  term,  or  year.  U.  D.' 

" '  I  want  grandpa  Junot  to  give  his  message  first.' 

" '  Please  give  my  love  to  N &  his  children  in  the  body 

&  assure  him  that  his  interests  are  mine,  tell  him  he  has  a 
great  deal  to  be  grateful  for  &  he  must  take  care  of  himself,  to 
do  his  allotted  work,  in  that  life.  I  want  him  to  know  that  we 
are  all  together  &  we  are  watching  over  you  all.  there  is  no 
misunderstanding  in  this  life,  his  mother  sends  much  love 
also.' 

"  Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  Helen  has  not  been  very  well.'  B. — '  I 
know  it  mother  but  she  will  be  now,  better  all  the  time.'  Mrs. 
J. — '  Yes,  I  think  she  is  growing  stronger.'  B. — '  111  ask  Doctor 
to  look  at  her.  [Medical  diagnosis  follows.]  [Phinuit?  H.H.] 
Helen  skate  dear  when  you  can  do  you  remember  how  I  used 
to  help  you.' 

"  B.— '  Who  is  that  girl  you  call  Edith  . . .'  Mrs.  J.  (to  H.  J.) 
— '  Is  there  an  Edith  at  school  ? '  H.  J. — '  Edith  Waterman,  do 
you  mean  ? '  B. — '  I  do  not  care  for  her  for  you . . .' 

"H.  J.— 'Do  you  not  like  her?'  B.— 'I  thought  I  did  not. 
because  I  thought  she  was  not  sincere.' 

"  ['  Edith '  not  understood,  though  Mrs.  Junot  possibly  knows 
who  was  intended. — N.  B.  J.]  " 

51ST  SITTING.     (PR.XXIV,605.) 

June  28,  1904.  Present:  Mrs.  J.,  B.  B.  J.,  and  R.  H. 

"  B. — '  Is  that  you  Roble  well  I  am  glad  to  see  you.'  R. — 
'  Hallo,  Bennie,  I  am  glad  to  be  here  again.'  B. — '  I  have  seen 
you  in  so  many  places  since  I  spoke  with  you.  You  got  on 
finely  didnt  you.'  R. — '  Yes,  Bennie,  very  well.'  B. — '  I  told  you 
so.'  [Roble  has  just  graduated  with  honors. — N.  B.  J.] 

"B. — 'going  to  the  farm  soon.'  R. — 'Yes,  Bennie,  in  about 
a  week.'  B. — '  Now  Roble  I  can  see  better  than  you  can.  &  I 
want  you  to  look  out  for  that  horse  U.  D.'  R. — '  All  right,  I'll 
watch  him.'  B. — '  I  am  not  going  to  let  you  get  hurt,  tell 
me  about  your  work  I  shall  be  so  glad  when  you  get  settled 
down  with  father.'  R. — '  Yes,  I  expect  to  study  law  next  fall.' 


Ch.  XLIX]    Advice  from  Much  Teloptic  Knowledge     821 

"  B. — '  say  Roble  what  was  the  matter  with  your  foot.'  R. — 
*  I  cut  my  toe  in  swimming.'  B. — '  I  thought  so.  I  heard 
you  sing  out  but  I  saw  it  bleed.'  R. — '  Yes,  Bennie,  I  cut  it 
badly.'  B. — '  Was  that  your  handkerchief  you  put  on  to  it.' 
R. — '  No,  I  borrowed  one  from  another  boy.'  B. — '  I  thought  so. 
I  saw  the  influence  but  it  didnt  look  just  like  yours,  do  look 
out.' 

"B. — 'I  want  to  know  what  dad  is  doing  with  the  spring.' 
Mrs.  J. — '  I  don't  know,  Bennie.'  (Hand  turns  to  R.)  R. — '  I 
don't  know  now,  unless  he  is  having  it  cleared.'  B. — '  that  must 
be  it  ask  him  I  saw  him  talking  to  a  man  about  it.  the  very 
day  I  was  here  before.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yesterday  ?  He  may  have 
been  at  the  farm  yesterday.'  B. — '  it  was  when  I  came  here  be- 
fore &  spoke  with  you  &  Helen.'  Mrs.  J. — '  That  may  be.  He  is 
troubled  about  the  new  well  and  pump.'  B. — '  that  is  what  I  see 
surely.  &  I  am  sorry  to  have  him  worried  about  it  because  he 
ought  not  to  be  &  he  said  to  the  man  I  can't  see  why  it  could 
not  be  fixed  differently.'  [When  at  the  farm  3  days  before  this 
sitting  I  had  an  animated  discussion  with  the  man  who  tends 
the  hot-air  pump.  It  was  working  badly. — N.  B.  J.] 

" '  You  tell  him  to  rest.  &  drive  &  take  care  of  his.  health, 
he  is  tired.' 

"Mrs.  J. — 'Yes,  Bennie,  I  intend  to  have  him  do  very  little 
this  summer.  We  will  be  very  quiet  while  at  the  farm.'  B. — 
'  do  you  think  he  has  a  pain  in  his  back.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  he 
complains  of  it.'  B. — '  I  want  very  much  to  have  him  take  a 
long  rest  &  get  over  it.  Do  tell  him  for  me  I  love  my  father 
dearly  &  I  want  him  well ' 

" '  tell  me  about  your  horse  Roble  don't  you  think  he  is  a 
high  headed  fellow  for  you  to  ride.' . . .  R. — '  Yes,  he  is  a  bit 
nervous.'  B. — '  do  look  out  for  him  won't  you  ? . . .  Why  don't 
you  &  dad  take  a  trip  over  the  water  for  a  little  while  ? '  R. — '  I 
would  like  to,  but  he  is  very  busy  now.'  B. — '  I  know  it  but  I 

mean  a  little  later Do  you  know  what  troubled  him  so  about 

the  R.  R.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  Bennie.  But  I  think  he  was  over 
anxious.'  [I  had  some  months  ago  a  period  of  great  anxiety 
about  some  railroad  business.  I  was  thinking  of  it  constantly 
for  weeks,  and  it  is  not  yet  settled  to  my  entire  satisfaction. — 
N.  B.  J.]  B. — '  I  know  he  was.  &  it  will  come  out  all  right 
Uncle  Frank  says  so.' 

" '  I  did  not  finish  about  Helens  friend.'  Mrs.  J. — '  No, 
Bennie,  I  was  going  to  ask  about  her. . . .  the  girl  I  mean  is  not 
fond  of  Helen.'  Mrs.  J.— '  Tell  me  how  she  looks.'  B.— '  She 
is  tall  &  has  very  dark  hair  &  she  has  dark  eyes  too . . .  she  is 
jealous  of  Helen  . . .'  Mrs.  J. — '  I  do  not  know  any  girl  of  that 
name.'  B. — '  She  plays,  on  Violin  I  think ' 

" 'if  you  can  place  her  it  will  help  very  much.    I  do 


822  The  Piper-Junot  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

see  it  mother  dear.'   [This  girl  is  not  satisfactorily  recognized. — 
N.  B.  J.] 

The  unreliability  of  this  girl  does  not  appear  to  be  in 
any  incarnate  mind:  so  it  was  not  telepathed  to  Mrs.  Piper. 

"R. — '  Bennie,  do  you  ever  see  me  rowing  or  canoeing?' 
B. — ' . . .  didn't  I  tell  you  I  would  watch  over  you  &  see  that 
nothing  happened  to  you  when  rowing.' 

Did  Bennie  constantly  reckon  on  his  telekinetic  power 
without  a  telekinetic  medium,  or  did  he  expect  to  work  en- 
tirely through  the  mind?  Either  way,  he,  or  somebody,  or 
themselves,  guarded  his  family  very  nicely  through  the  six  and 
a  half  years  of  these  sittings.  They  have  already  reached  the 
point  where  the  family  consults  him  about  everything. 

As  I  do  not  know  who  they  are,  I  am  going  to  indulge 
my  impulse  to  remark  again  that  it  is  a  remarkably  nice 
family,  and  rendered  to  perfection. 

"  R. — *  Yes,  I  remember.'  B. — '  I  think  you  have  great  fun. 
&  I  am  glad  you  do  it  makes  me  as  happy  as  it  does  you.'  R. — 
'  That  is  good.'  B. — '  Isn't  that  the  same  River  I  used  to  go 
on ...  Give  them  all  my  love  and  tell  Roble  to  be  as  happy  as 
he  can.' " 

[Extract  from  R.  B.  J.'s  letter,  Nov.  23,  1904 :  "  In  the  notes 
of  Nov.  16,  Bennie  says  '  tell  Roble  to  be  as  happy  as  he  can.' 
This  may  have  some  connection  with  a  family  joke  to  the  effect 
that  I  said,  when  I  started  to  work  this  fall,  that  I  never  ex- 
pected to  have  a  good  time  again.  This  has  grown  to  be  quite 
a  phrase  in  our  family."] 

57iH  SITTING.     (PR.XXIV,625.) 
January  9,  1905.  Present:  R.  H. 

(R.  H.  put  Bennie's  articles  in  front  of  sheets.) 
"  B. — '  tell  Dad  not  to  hurry  so  when  eating.'  " 

Which  leads  the  present  editor  to  inquire:  Where  is  Dr. 
Phinuit? 

58TH  SITTING.    (PR.XXTV,625f.) 

February  27,  1905.  Present:  R.  H. 

"  B.— '  dad  did  you  have  a  cold  was  that  it  ? '  N.  B.  J.— '  Yes, 
Bennie,  I  had  a  very  bad  cold.'  B. — '  I  tried  to  help  you  all  through 
it.  I  know  so  well  when  anything  is  the  matter  with  any  of  you. 
I  know  better  if  possible  than  you  do  U.  D.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Yes, 
Bennie,  help  us  all  you  can.'  B. — '  Oh  yes.  I  shall  do  that.  & 
I  am  not  going  so  far  from  you  that  I  shall  not  be  ready  when 
you  come  remember.  I  shall  be  ready  to  meet  each  of  you. ...  I 


Ch.  XLIX]    Denies  that  Progress  mil  Remove  Him     823 

heard  you  talking  about  my  going  a  long  way  from  you.  not  so 
dad  I  am  growing  all  the  time  in  knowledge  of  this  new  life 
but  not  that  I  shall  leave  you.  don't  forget  that,  did  you  U. 
D.  that  I  heard  you  talking  about  my  going  so  far  away' . . .  [At 
one  time  we  talked  of  the  possibility  of  changes  in  the  other 
life  and  that  Bennie  might  have  to  pass  on  and  away  from  re- 
membrance of  us. — N.  B.  J.] 

"  Mrs.  J. — '  No,  but,  Bennie,  in  your  thought  to  care  for 
us,  you  must  not  do  anything  to  prevent  your  own  progress.' 
B. — '  No  how  could  I  dear  mother,  there  are  laws  connected 
with  this  life  &  its  conditions  which  enable  me  to  progress 
constantly  yet.  while  progressing  I  am  better  able  to  if  pos- 
sible to  help  you.  than  otherwise.' 

"  N.  B.  J. — '  Bennie,  do  you  ever  see  Hugh  ? '  B. — '  Of  course 
I  do.  I  told  you  about  him  dad . . .'  N.  B.  J. — '  Bennie,  tell 
Hugh  that  dad  never  ceases  to  be  sorry  that  he  didn't  take 
care  of  Hugh  better.'  B. — '  he  will  be  glad  to  hear  from  you 
oh  so  glad  because  he  often  goes  with  me  to  the  office  &  stable 
&  everywhere  I  go.  &  dad  he  is  very  fond  of  you.  he  said  I 
don't  think  your  father  quite  U.  D.  me.' 

"  B. — '  Mother  will  you  tell  me  who  all  those  people  were  at 
the  house  the  other  day  or  what  they  were  there  for?'  Mrs. 
J. — '  I  think  you  mean  some  friends  of  Roble's  who  came  to 
rehearse  a  play.'  B. — '  I  thought  I  heard  so  much  talking  it 
confused  me  somewhat.'  [Roble  lately  had  a  number  of  young 
friends  at  our  home  rehearsing  for  private  theatricals.  They 
were  very  merry. — N.  B.  J.] 

"  B. — '  Do  you  see  how  perfectly  well  Roble  is  ? '  Mrs.  J. — 
'  Yes,  and  very  happy  and  contented.'  B. — '  Yes  I  knew  it.  isn't 
he  a  good  boy  dad  ? '  N.  B.  J. — '  Indeed  he  is,  a  great  pleasure 
and  comfort.'  B. — '  he  loves  you  all  dearly  &  is  I  think  very 
unselfish  for  which  I  am  so  thankful. ...  I  think  his  work  with 
dad  is  just  the  best  thing  in  your  world  for  him.' 

"  N.  B.  J. — '  Bennie.  Have  you  any  message  from  my  mother 
and  father?'  (Hand  points  to  Spirit.)  B. — 'Grandma  is  so 
interested  in  my  talks  with  you  that  when  I  finish  here  she 
gets  close  to  me  &  asks  me  all  sorts  of  questions.  &  I  have 
to  tell  her  everything  about  you  all  as  I  hear  it  from  you. 
She  says  the  only  thing  she  cannot  forget  is  the  conditions  of 
her  earthly  life  &  kow  often  she  misunderstood  her  children. 
She  sends  her  love  to  you  every  time  I  come  &  if  you  could  see 
her  as  she  looks  now  you  would  be  delighted  I  know.  Dad  do 
you  think  everything  is  all  right  at  the  farm.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Yes, 
Bennie,  Roble  tends  to  the  farm  now.' 

"  B. — '  here  comes  cousin  Frank,  he  was  sorry  his  mother 
was  not  well.'  R.  H. — '  Bennie,  I  have  some  articles  of  Frank's. 
Shall  I  produce  them  now  ? ' 


824  The  Piper-Junot  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IY 

" '  Better  avoid  confusion  friend  &  present  them  at  the  be- 
ginning of  our  next  meeting  +  R.' 

"  B. — '  Dad  don't  work  too  hard  I  see  how  anxious  you  are 
at  times  take  care  of  your  health  &  I  will  take  care  of  Helen/ 
N.  B.  J. — '  Good  boy,  Good  boy.'  B. — *  Helen  is  not  very  strong 
&  she  is  very  apt  to  overtax  her  strength  besides  she  does  not 
wear  warm  clothing  I  see  it.' " 

59TH  SITTING.     (PR.XXIV,634.) 

February  28,  1905.        Present:  Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.f  and  R.  H. 
(Frank  C.  communicating.) 

" '  Please  help  me  to  U.  D.  HOW  to  talk  like  other  friends 
of  mine  I  am  Frank  if  you  TJ.  D.  me . . .  (R.  H.  gestures  to 
Mrs.  J.  to  put  F.'s  articles  near  block-book.  She  does.)  help 

me  Benny Oh  I  am  so  glad  to  come  here  will  you  help  me 

to  talk?'  R.  H.— 'Yes,  take  your  time.'  (R.  H.  gestures  to 
Sitters  to  talk.)  N.  B.  J.— '  Yes,  Frank,  we'll  help  you.  But 
send  word  to  your  mother.  She  wants  to  hear  from  you.  Tell 
about  yourself.' 

(Hand  vibrates  somewhat,  turning  for  some  seconds  to 
Spirit  then  to  R.  H.  and  Mrs.  J.  and  back.) 

The  hand  frequently  seems  to  turn  to  the  communicating 
spirit.  Then  the  medium  enacts,  and  is  not  possessed  by,  the 
alleged  spirit.  The  spirit  seems  to  be  experienced  as  in  a  dream. 

" '  Oh  yes  I  U.  D.  will  you  tell  mama  how  I  know  about  her. 
Is  it  uncle  N . . .' 

"  B. — '  listen.  I  went  &  told  Hugh  what  you  said  about  him 
&  he  said  if  God  TJ.  D.  all  you  must  U.  D.  also  that  all  is 
well  with  him.  don't  worry  about  anything  he  had  his  faults  & 
many  of  them.'  Mrs.  J. — 'Yes,  Bennie,  but  we  did  not  know 
that  he  was  sick,  else  we  would  have  taken  care  of  him ' 

"B.— 'did  you  TJ.  D.  about  that  plank?'  Mrs.  J.— '  What 
do  you ...  to  what  do  you  refer,  Bennie  ? '  B. — '  Roble  jumped 
off  from  it  &  I  feared  he  would  get  injured.'  Mrs.  J. — '  I  think 
you  mean  the  platform  at  the  seashore . . .  the  raft  at  the  sea- 
shore ? '  B. — '  Raft  yes  that  the  name  of  it.  tell  me  who  the 
fellow  was  in  Robles  room  last  night. . . .  such  fun  I  never 
heard.' 

"Mrs.  J. — 'What  were  they  doing?'  B. — 'he  was  playing, 
on  a  banjo he  &  another  fellow  were  there  together,  play- 
ing &  one  sang  something.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Go  on,  Bennie.'  B. — 
'  like.  Dellia.'  N.  B.  J.  and  Mrs.  J.— ' "  Delia." '  B.— '  I  could 
not  catch  it.'  (Hand  turns  to  R.  H.)  R.  H.— '  Delia  ? '  B.— 
'  I  cannot  tell  you  I  got  it  so  mixed  up  in  my  thoughts,  say 
it  again.'  R.  H.— '  Delia? . . .  Dellia? '  Mrs.  J.— '  Bennie,  per- 


Ch.  XLIX]  Claims  Telekinesis.  Contemplates  Profession  825 

haps  you  mean  Burdelia.  Budelia?  It  is  a  song  that  the  boys 
sing.'  B. — '  Yes  I  think  so.  say  it  again  it  sounded  so  queer 
to  me.'  N.  B.  J.— 'It's  Obedelia.'  Mrs.  J— '  Obedelia ?  Be- 
delia  ? '  B. — '  Yes.'  Mrs.  J. — '  You  got  it  very  nearly  right.' 
B. — '  I  heard  O  I  heard  Steel  ing  I  heard  Delia  ...  do  you 
know  Bert.'  Mrs.  J. — 'No,  Bennie.' ...  N.  B.  J.  (to  Mrs.  J. 
sotto  voce.)  '  Yes,  you  do.'  Mrs.  J. — ' . . .  but  go  on,  this  is  very 
interesting.'  Mrs.  J.  (to  N.  B.  J.)— '  Who  is  Bert?'  N.  B.  J.— 

(to  Mrs.  J.) — 'Bert  B .'  B. — 'I  think  they  have  some  joke 

on  him.' 

"  ' Benny  speaks  of  a  boy  playing  on  a  banjo  last  night. 

The  night  before  this  sitting  I  was  with  a  party  of  young  people 
and  we  played  the  piano  and  sang,  but  did  not  sing  Bedelia. 
Then  he  says  "  Steeling."  The  words  of  the  song  are  "  O,  Be- 
delia, I've  made  up  my  mind  to  steal  you."  . . .  speaking  of  Bert 
he  says  "  I  think  they  have  some  joke  on  him."  Now,  Bert  was 
always  getting  into  trouble,  and  the  joke  was  always  on  him,  so 
much  so,  that  we  always  called  him  Bertie  the  Goat.  Below 
that  he  says  "  I  heard  Roble  say  Walter  and  something  about 
joke  and  Bert."  Now,  our  phrase  always  was  "joke  on  Bert," 
and  we  used  it  very  often.'] 

"  ' how  is  K  L  O  N . . .  my  pony ? '  N.  B.  J.— <  Klon- 
dike turned  bad,  and  we  sold  him  to  the  butcher.'  B. — '  I  feared, 
for  him.  &  Helen.  Did  you  say  sold  him  ? '  N.  B.  J. — '  Yes, 
he  came  near  hurting  Helen.'  B. — 'Do  you  think  I  could  see 
&  permit  that?'  [Does  Bennie  overrate  his  telekinetic  power? 
But  see  page  822.  H.H.]  Mrs.  J. — '  Did  you  tell  us  to  get  rid 
of  him  ? '  B. — '  I  warned  dad.  &  when  he  said  sold  I  was  very 
glad,  you  do  not  U.  D.  how  you  often  do  the  very  things  I  tell 
you.' 

"  B.— '  tell  me  about  the  horse  Roble  had . . .'  N.  B.  J.— '  He's 
at  the  farm  still,  Bennie.'  B. — '  Yes,  but  he  is  bad  too.'  N.  B.  J. 
— '  Yes,  Bennie,  I'll  have  him  sold,  and  get  Roble  another  horse.' 

"B. — 'dad  I  don't  like  law  very  well  wouldn't  you  like  me 
to  be  a  doctor  or  something  worth  while  so  I  could  help  peo- 
ple?" [G.  P.  told  me  they  had  no  physical  ills  over  there  1 
Perhaps  Bennie  meant  to  help  the  living,  a  la  Phinuit?  H.H.] 

N.  B.  J.— '  Yes,  Bennie,  I  think  that  would  be  better.'  B.— 
'I  do  too.'  N.  B.  J. — 'Bennie,  are  you  studying  law  now?' 
B. — '  Yes  &  no.  I  am  studying  one  kind  of  law  but  not  as  I 
used.  I  am  studying  the  laws  of  the  mortal  &  spiritual  life 
which  interests  me  greatly.  I  love  to  help  you  in  U.  D.  where 
I  really  am  etc  etc  etc.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  do  all  the  people 
in  your  life  help  some  one  on  our  side?'  B. — 'invariably, 
except  the  children  here  &  we  have  to  help  them  ourselves.' 
Mrs.  J. — '  Tell  me  how  you  look  now.  Have  you  grown  older, 
or  do  you  look  as  you  did  ? '  B. — '  Older  no  dear  not  in  looks, 
I  look  about  the  same.  You  will  not  have  any  trouble  recog- 


826  The  Piper- Junoi  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

nizing  me  when  you  come.'  Mrs.  J. — '  No,  only  I  have  often 
wondered  if  people  change  in  your  life.'  B. — '  that  depends 
mother  dear  on  the  conditions  under  which  they  passed  over  & 
the  condition  of  their  lives  while  in  the  body.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Do 
you  grow  old  as  we  do  ? '  B. — '  No  not  in  spirit  mother.'  R.  H. 
— '  Bennie,  I  think  your  mother  wants  to  know  whether  there 
is  growth,  for  example,  from  children  up,  and  whether  old  peo- 
ple remain  very  old,  and  so  on.'  B. — '  I  U.  D.  no ...  old  people 
grow  younger  [Compare  through  Index  under  Age.  H.H.]  in  a 
sense  while  children  grow  to  the  years  of  maturity  as  you  would 
express  it we  look  as  we  did  when  in  the  body  with  the  ex- 
ception of  looking  old.  I  do  not  grow  wrinkles  lose  my  hair 

etc 1  retain  my  looks  so  you  would  know  me.     perfectly 

well.  I  wonder  if  I  will  ever,  speak  with  you  again  here.' 
[With  this  medium.  H.H.]  Mrs.  J. — '  I  hope  so,  Bennie/ 
B— '  Will  I  Mr  Hodgson  think? '  R.  H.— '  You  doubtless  will, 
Bennie,  if  the  light  [i.e.  the  medium's  power.  H.H.]  continues 
to  burn.'  B. — '  It  is  growing  dim  now.' " 

63o  SITTING.     (PR.XXIV,647f.) 

November  20, 1905.  Present :  Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.  and  R.  H. 
"B. — 'help  me  to  U.  D.  what  troubles  Aunt  Alice  so  much.' 
Mrs.  J. — '  I  do  not  know,  Bennie.  Last  summer  she  seemed 
very  happy,  I  thought.'  B. — '  no  it  is  not  her  mind  but  her 
body.  Is  it  rheumatism  ? '  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  Bennie,  partly.' 
B. — '  I  think  I  can  help  her  too.  I'll  keep  on  trying.  Grandpa 
Junot  says,  it's  no  use.  worrying  all  things  are  right  with 
God ' 

" '  tell  me  is  Roble  U.  D.  law  any  better . . .'  Mrs.  J. — 
'  Yes.  Tell  me  what  you  know  about  Roble.'  B. — '  I  am  much 
amused  re ...  in  regard  to  him.  I  am  not  sure  he  will  be  al- 
together interested  in  law.  he  has  other  things  on  his  mind. . . .' 
N.  B.  J. — '  Bennie,  do  you  know  where  Roble  now  is  ? '  B. — '  I 
saw  him  going  on  a  boat. . . .  sounds  like  Boat....'  Mrs.  J. — 
*  Bennie,  Roble  is  not  with  us  now.  I  wish  that  you  could  tell 

us  about  him  later '    B. — '  Dad  did  you  say  you  would  give 

Roble  the  farm.'  N.  B.  J.— 'Yes,  I  did.'  B.— 'good  I  am 
glad  of  it  then  I  can  see  him  there. . . .  wake  up  dad  dear. . . . 
did  you  say  Helen  could  not  go  back  to  school. . . .'  Mrs.  J. — 
'  She  was  not  strong  enough,  we  thought,  so  we  kept  her  at 
home,  and  she  is  trying  to  get  entirely  well.'  B. — '  that  is  fine. 
She  is  not  lazy.  I  dislike  that  word  applied  to  her.  She  grew 
too  fast  and  used  up  all  the  strength  she  had  in  growing.' 
Mrs.  J. — '  Yes  ?  Her  nervous  energy  was  stronger  than  her 
physical  endurance.'  B. — '  Vitality  . . .  the  Dr.  [Was  Phinuit 
still  in  consultation  practice,  though  he  had  stopped  visiting 
patients  on  this  side?  H.H.]  says  keep  her  out  doors  a  good 
deal.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes.  I  wish  that  I  had  understood  her  condi- 


Ch.  XLIX]    Telopsis  Follows  Brother  to  Mexico  827 

tion  long  ago.'    B. — '  Didn't  I  keep  telling  you  dear  that  she  was 

not  well  and  if  she  did  not  practise  she  was  not  to  blame  ? ' 

"  Mrs.  J. — '  I ...  it  is  very  hard  to  know  the  right  thing  to 
do,  Bennie.'  B. — '  I  know  and  feel  the  importance  of  looking 
after  her  and  they  told  me  here  to  tell  you  all  about  her.  I'll 
speak  to  Dr.'  [Medical  advice  follows.] " 

64TH  SITTING. 
November  21,  1905.         Present:  Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.  and  R.  H. 

"  B. — '  I  found  Roble,  after  I  saw  you  . . .  He  seems  to  be 

very  busy he  has  now  taken  up  a  new  life  which  will  help 

him  greatly.  I  saw  his . . .  what  shall  I  call  it  room.  Does  he 
need  more  help  or  study,  I  wonder.  What  I  see  is  clear  &  he. 
got  his.  own.  Ideas  about  his  business.  I  think  he  is ... 
Started  for  himself,  how  can  I  tell  you?'  [Then  his  room, 
with  maps  and  charts  is  described.  H.H.]  . . .  N.  B.  J. — '  Ben- 
nie, could  you  tell  whether  he  was  at  home  or  in  a  foreign  land  ? ' 
B. — '  way  off  very  far  away  it  took  me  ever  since  I  saw  you  . . . 
to  find  locate  him  and  return  here  to  tell  you  about  him.' 

"  N.  B.  J. — '  Bennie,  can  you  tell  what  language  they  speak 
where  Roble  is?'  B.—' language.'  Mrs.  J.— '  Yes.'  B.— 
*  Sounds  like  German,  but  I  cannot  exactly  tell  you.'  [Roble 
was  at  his  mining  property  in  lower  Mexico  at  this  time. 
Spanish  is  the  language  spoken  by  all  the  employes  there. — 
N.  B.  J.] 

"  B. — '  he  has  some  light  [i.e.  mediumistic  sensibility.  H.H.] 
Roble  has  and  I  often  guide  him  when  he  gets  a  little  uncer- 
tain, ask  him  if  he  doesn't  realize  that  I  am  with  him? 
...  it  looked  like  summer  all  the  time.  [In  Mexico.  H.H.]  I 
IT.  D.  better  than  I  can  say.  Did  he  tell  you  that  I  was  with 
him  at  the  office,  one  day  before  he  went  away.'  Mrs.  J. — '  No. 
But  he  often  dreams  about  you,  and  feels  that  you  are  with  him  ' 
[evidence  of  Roble's  "light"?  H.H.] 

"  Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  tell  me  about  yourself.'  B. — '  What  can  I 
tell  you  I  am  so  well  and  so  happy  and  with  Miriam  and  Frank 
all  the  time  they  are  well  and  happy  also  We  are  helping  each 
other  I  am  teaching  school  now  and  I  like  it  very  much.' 

"  B. — *  Father  did  you  say  I  might  go  so  far  away  you  could 
not  find  me  when  you  came.'  N.  B.  J. — '  Yes,  Bennie,  we  were 
talking  about  that,  and  I  was  afraid  you  might  have  to  go  far 
away.'  B. — 'I  do  not  wish  you  to  think  this  my  ties  are  too 
strong  for  that  and  when  you  are  called  to  this  beautiful  world 
I  shall  be  the  first  to  greet  and  help  you  don't  worry  about  that.' 

"  Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  are  you  with  me  constantly  ? '  B. — '  Yes 
mother  I  am  with  you  what  you  call  every  day  I  go  to  Roble 
I  pray  for  him  I  go  to  Helen  I  pray  for  her  I  find  dad  I 
pray  for  him  and  then  I  go  all  over  it  again  and  nothing  gives 


828  The  Piper-Junot  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pt  IV 

me  so  much  pleasure.'...  [No  revolutionary  change  of  tastes, 
convictions  or  habits,  apparently.  H.H.]  Mrs.  J. — '  When  I 
think  of  you,  does  it  bring  you  to  me  ? '  B. — '  Almost  invariably 
and  is  a  great  help.  Don't  you  U.  D.  how  I  do  this  Hodgson  Mr.' 
R.  H. — '  Yes,  I  do,  I  think,  in  a  way.'  [Is  it  mild  hypnotic 
control?  H.H.]  (Mrs.  P.'s  breathing  rather  heavy.  K.  H. 
changes  position  of  head.) 

"  B. — '  What  is  wrong  friend  your  body  seems  not  right.' 
[Any  connection  with  soreness  in  my  back  muscles? — R.  H.J 
R.  H.— '  I  attended  to  the  light.'  B.— '  that  cannot  be  it.'  N. 
B.  J. — '  To  whom  was  that  addressed  ? '  B. — '  Are  you  alright 
Mother?'  [Seems  to  confuse  Mrs.  Piper's  malaise  with  others'. 
H.H.]  Mrs.  J. — '  No,  Bennie,  I  have  not  felt  quite  well  lately.' 
B. — '  Are  you  alright  this  minute  ? '  Mrs.  J. — '  Oh  yes,  oh  yes. 
But  I  have  been  troubled  about  Helen's  illness,  and  I  mis3 
Roble  very  much.'  B. — '  I  know  but  do  not  feel  troubled  about 

either  I   assure  you  they  are  both   alright trouble   cornea 

without  bringing  it  mother  dear  so  do  not  worry  for  my  sake 
as  I  know. .  . .' 


"  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  but,  Bennie,  we  do  not  see  and  understand 
as  you  do,  and  we  have  not  the  strength  of  mind  that  you 
have.'  [We  certainly  have  watched  its  growth.  H.H.]  B. — 
'I  TJ.  D.  what  you  mean  but  the  more  you  believe  in  the 
thought  that  all  will  be  well  the  happier  you  will  be  don't  you 
feel  it  so  dad?'  N.  B.  J.— 'Yes.  I  have  no  doubt  but  that 
you  are  right.'  B. — 'Now  I  said  help  me  to  keep  my  father 
in  the  body  well  and  strong  he  needs  strength  for  his  work,  and 
I  kept  saying  it  over  and  over  again  and  you  began  to  feel 
better . . .'  Mrs.  J. — '  Bennie,  tell  me  more  about  yourself.  Do 
you  ever  regret  that  you  left  this  world  so  early  ? '  B. — '  Re- 
gret ? '  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes.'  B. — '  Why  no  mother  I  have  nothing 
to  regret  dear  I  am  very  happy  here  and  I  have  greater  privileges 
than  you  can  possibly  have  I  can  see  you  all  just  as  often  as 
I  wish  and  I  TJ.  D.  you  are  coming  to  me  some  day.  therefore 
I  am  not  only  glad  I  came  but  I  am  supremely  happy  if  you 
can  U.  D.  it.'  Mrs.  J. — '  Yes,  Bennie,  but  sometimes  I  feel  that 
every  one  should  have  a  long  life  in  this  world  of  ours.'  B. — 
'but  God  thinks  differently,  and  this  is  the  way  of  all  all 
must  come  sooner  or  later.  He  knows  better  than  any  of  ua 
either  on  our  side  or  on  yours.  I  get  dad's  thoughts  sometimes 
when  he  is  surrounded  by  curious  etc  [?]  influences  giving 
advice  and  help  and  I  say . . .  Oh  how  much  better  off  I  am  and 
how  I  wish  he  could  see  me  as  I  am.' " 

I  learn  that  if  the  sittings  depict  actualities,  Bennie  and  his 
mother  were  reunited  some  five  years  after  the  last  sitting. 


Ch.  XLIX]     The  Habit  of  Consulting  Mediums  829 

Assuming  that  these  communications  are  what  they  purport 
to  be,  the  many  sittings  may  have  been  an  excellent  thing 
for  this  admirable  family,  and  yet  I  can  easily  conceive 
many  other  people,  less  admirable  perhaps,  to  whom  the 
habit  of  such  sittings  would  be  of  doubtful  benefit;  and  still 
other  people,  not  less  admirable,  who,  once  satisfied  of  future 
reunion,  would  make  no  effort  for  communication  here,  but 
while  ready  with  most  grateful  welcome  for  any  that  might 
come,  would  prefer  to  leave  the  whole  matter  to  the  spon- 
taneous course  of  Nature.  In  other  words,  I  incline  to 
think  that  for  many  people,  probably  for  the  vast  majority, 
the  medium  habit  would  not  be  a  good  habit;  and  yet 
many  of  these  very  people  are  probably  grateful  for  what 
has  come  to  themselves  from  the  habit  in  others;  and  for 
most  of  those  others  the  habit  may  be  a  good  one.  To 
many  of  those  who  do  not  seek  veridical  dreams,  there  may  be 
still  open  a  possible  avenue  of  communication  in  them 
unsought,  and  with  no  danger  of  running  an  interest  in 
another  world  to  an  extreme  that  might  in  some  cases  be 
prejudicial  to  many  interests  in  this  one.  Interests  in  this 
one,  however,  seem  in  the  greater  danger  of  being  run  to  an 
extreme. 


BOOK  III 
ATTEMPTS  AT  CORRELATION 

CHAPTER  L 

RELATIONS  OF  THE  MEDIUM'S  DREAMS  WITH  OTHER 

DREAMS 

LET  us  now  try,  even  at  the  cost  of  much  repetition,  to 
group  into  some  sort  of  system  the  suggestions  that  have 
come  up  incidentally  during  our  examination  of  alleged 
Possession. 

It  will  be  most  convenient  to  talk  of  Mrs.  Piper,  as  the 
best  type  of  medium,  and  consider  the  others  only  inciden- 
tally when  their  phenomena  show  important  differences  from 
hers,  or  cast  light  on  hers. 

As  already  said  in  connection  with  telekinesis  and  telepathy, 
in  attempting  to  correlate  phenomena  we  don't  understand 
with  those  we  do,  it  is  well  to  begin  with  the  points  of 
resemblance. 

I.  The  first  noticeable  thing  about  Mrs.  Piper's  phenomena 
is  that  she  is  asleep,  the  next  (historically)  that  she  is  talk- 
ing in  her  sleep,  though  she  now  has  substituted  writing. 
When  people  talk  in  their  sleep,  we  ordinarily  suppose  them 
to  be  dreaming,  which  raises  a  presumption  that  Mrs.  Piper 
is  dreaming.  In  the  waking  stage  she  often  alludes  to  what 
she  has  dreamed,  but  soon  forgets  it.  At  first  this  seems  to 
do  away  entirely  with  the  old-fashioned  notion  of  possession, 
but  perhaps  we  shall  come  (if  we  have  not  come  already)  to  an 
impression  including  both  notions — that  her  consciousness  re- 
mains in  the  dream,  and  that  it  is  influenced  from  outside. 

Some  people  talk  in  their  sleep  and  some  do  not.  Mrs. 
Piper  does  when  she  goes  into  trance  wishing  to  talk,  though 
I  find  no  record  that  she  talks  in  her  ordinary  sleep,  when 
of  course  she  does  not  go  to  sleep  wishing  to  talk. 

830 


Ch.  L]  Resemblances  831 

The  dream  states  in  ordinary  sleep,  trance,  somnambulism, 
and  hypnosis  do  not  seem  to  differ  from  each  other  in 
quality.  In  ordinary  sleep  people  are  perhaps  as  ready  for 
suggestion  as  in  hypnosis.  Any  trifle  can  make  them  dream 
immensities  (see  p.  896).  The  dream  states  differ  im- 
mensely in  degree,  however.  I  remember  a  report  somewhere 
of  Mrs.  Piper  slipping  from  one  degree  to  another — in- 
ferring from  her  feeling  in  the  morning  that  she  had  had 
a  trance  in  the  midst  of  her  ordinary  sleep.  Mrs.  Piper's 
dreams,  like  those  of  ordinary  sleep,  appear  to  have  ranged 
from  abnormality  not  only  to  normality,  but  apparently  to  a 
tonic  quality.  Ordinary  dreams  range  from  horrid  night- 
mares, from  which  the  dreamer  awakens  trembling  and  ex- 
hausted, to  beatific  visions  from  which  he  awakes  stimulated 
and  refreshed.  Despite  many  writers  quoted  by  Freud  in 
the  Interpretation  of  Dreams,  nightmares  seem  a  small 
minority  with  sensitives  and  good  dreamers  generally. 
Dreams  are  frequently  held  to  diminish  the  amount  of  sleep, 
and  consequently  its  good  effects.  This  is  certainly  far  from 
the  case  with  pleasant  dreams,  and  with  the  general  run  of 
mediumistic  trances. 

II.  The  capacity  to  sleep  intensely  or  at  will,  or  both,  has 
often  accompanied  high  intellectual  ability,  and  is  probably 
one  cause  of  it.     Witness  Napoleon  with  his  average  four 
hours,  and  Havelock,  as  soon  as  he  had  his  dispositions  for 
battle  made,  telling  his  aides  to  wake  him  when  things  get 
going,  and  lying  down  on  the  field,  with  his  eyes  covered, 
for  a  nap.     All  of  which  reminds  me  of  how  John  Fiske 
could  sleep.     We  were  living  together  in  London  in  1879; 
he  had  an  engagement  one  morning  after  we  had  had  several 
late  and  strenuous  nights,  and  I  found  it  impossible  to  wake 
him  without  injury.     I  have  sometimes  wondered  if  I  could 
have  done  it  even  by  resorting  to  injury.     Yet  our  strenuosity 
had  had  no  conditions  to  make  his  sleep  other  than  natural. 

The  capacity  to  enter  trance  at  will  accompanies  the  special 
ability  of  most  of  the  sensitives. 

III.  The  sensitives,  dreaming,  think  they  see  real  people. 
So  do  the  rest  of  us.     It  is  only  after  we  wake  up  that  we 
don't  believe  that  they  were  what  we  call  in  the  material 
body.    For  some  purposes  the  body  seems  a  superfluous  and 


832       The  Medium's  Dreams  and  Other  Dreams    [Bk.  Ill 

cumbersome  appendage :  the  dream  presentations  of  it  answer 
every  immediate  purpose  that  the  waking  presentations  do, 
even  to  the  sexual  relations.  The  only  lack  of  the  dream 
bodies  seems  to  be  permanence ;  but  that  is  only  apparent :  for 
to  the  sensitives  they  come  as  regularly,  and  even  after  as 
long  intervals,  and  in  readier  response  to  summons,  than  do 
personages  in  the  flesh:  the  Ideas  of  them  seem  permanent. 
They  are  certainly  more  definite  than  what  we,  waking,  call 
memories. 

IV.  The  sensitives  identify  themselves  in  their  dreams  with 
other  people.  So  probably  do  most  of  us  at  times.  I  think  I've 
done  it  more  than  once,  though  I  don't  remember  distinctly. 

V.  Many  dreamers,  from  waking  visions  through  ordinary 
sleep  up  to  mediumistic  trance,  get  knowledge  in  ways  still 
unexperienced  by  mankind  in  general,  and  little  understood 
by  the  dreamers  themselves. 

VI.  A  large  part  of  trance  utterances   and  heteromatic 
writing  is  as  incoherent  and  nonsensical  as  dream  matter  in 
general.     The  former  must  not  be  judged  by  what  is  re- 
ported: as  a  rule  only  the  coherent  parts  are  published,  and 
even  they  are  often  shot  through  by  veins  of  incoherence.    On 
the  other  hand,  the  very  best  sittings  cannot  be  published 
because  they  are  too  intimate,  which  of  course  must  mean  not 
only  that  they  relate  to  intimate  affairs,  but  that  they  have 
the  verisimilitude  dependent  on  coherency  and  consistency. 

VII.  Like  ordinary  dreamers,  Mrs.  Piper  remembers  some- 
thing  of   her   trance   dreams.     Her  somewhat   involuntary 
expressions  between  her  trance  state  and  full  consciousness 
of  ordinary  life  show  this. 

Now  let  us  consider  the  differences  between  Mrs.  Piper's 
trance  dreams  and  ordinary  dreams.  Remember,  I  speak  of 
hers,  for  convenience,  and  only  as  the  type. 

I.  Hers  generally  last  an  hour  or  two:  many  ordinary 
dreams,  quite  probably  most,  though  lasting  hours  in  the 
dream  life,  measured  by  the  waking  life,  last  only  seconds. 
Many  long  dreams  are  experimentally  proved  to  have  taken 
place  in  the  instant  between  a  disturbance  and  an  awaken- 
ing. My  most  significant  ones  have  been  cut  off  by  awaken- 
ing— once  clearly  with  an  obvious  cause.  It  looks  as  if  the 


Ch.  L]  Differences  833 

cause  of  the  dream  and  the  awakening  were  generally  the  same 
(see  p.  896). 

II.  Mrs.   Piper's  trances,  as  already  said,  can  generally 
be  brought  on  at  will.    A  few  people  can  dream  at  will,  but 
most  cannot.     Some  people  can  dream  about  anything  they 
please.    Eobert   Louis   Stevenson   and   Dr.   van   Eeden  say 
that  they  can,  and  DuMaurier's  account  of  Peter  Ibbetson's 
dreaming  reads  as  if  it  were  based  on  facts,  and  is  said  to 
be  so,  though,  whether  it  is  or  not,  such  a  rumor  is  almost 
inevitable. 

III.  The  trances  are  matters  of  everyday  occurrence   (if 
so  willed) ;  dreams — at  least  significant  dreams — seldom  are. 

IV.  Despite  much  confusion,  there  is  a  marked  continuity 
of  persons  and  interests  in  the  trances  of  the  sensitives;  and 
events  and  utterances,  both  spontaneous   and  hypnotic,  in 
one  dream  are  often  referred  to  in  later  ones.     Not  so  in 
ordinary  dreams  to  any  noticeable  extent. 

V.  The    dreamer's    impersonations    in    the    mediumistic 
trances  (and  perhaps  Home's  and  Foster's  semi-trances  might 
be  included,  and  probably  others)  mark  them  off  very  distinctly 
from  ordinary  dreams,  but  not  from  many  cases  of  somnam- 
bulism, and  not  at  all  from  many  of  hypnotism,  where  the 
subject  often  impersonates  what  the  hypnotizer  wills.     The 
assumption  of  discarnate  intelligences  hypnotizing  the  sensi- 
tives seems  to  fit  the  case  very  closely. 

VI.  Mrs.  Piper  writes  day  after  day  in  trance,  while  the 
cases  of  writing  in  ordinary  sleep  are  exceedingly  rare. 

VII.  The  recollections  of  all  trance  dreams  seem  to  dis- 
appear almost  entirely  as  soon  as  consciousness  is  recovered, 
and  entirel}'  within  a  few  hours.    Recollections  of  some  ordi- 
nary dreams  are  as  enduring  as  waking  recollections. 

VIII.  The  abundant  and  almost  constant  veridicity  in  the 
dreams  of  many  sensitives  constitutes  such  a  difference  from 
the  scant  and  occasional  veridicity  of  ordinary  dreams,  as 
probably  to  justify  including  it  here  under  differences  from 
them  rather  than  under  resemblances  to  them.    Yet  there  is  an 
important  resemblance,  and  although,  until  the  appearance 
of  modern  mediumship,  the  veridicity  in  ordinary  dreams 
had  not  attracted  much   investigation,  it  is  by  no  means 
to  be  neglected  in  investigating  mediumship. 


834       The  Medium's  Dreams  and  Other  Dreams    [Bk.  Ill 

So  much  for  the  resemblances  and  differences  between 
mediumistic  dreams  and  ordinary  dreams.  Now  for  the 
resemblance  of  mediumist'c  to  hypnotic  dreams. 

I.  As  often  said  already,  the  impersonations  by  the  sensi- 
tives in  their  trances   are  much  like  those  of  hypnotized 
subjects. 

II.  The  visions  seem  to  be  auto-hypnotic.     The  sensitives 
seem  to  suggest  to  themselves  that  they  shall  dream,  and  tell 
or  write  what  they  dream.     So  far  so  good.     Later  we  will 
consider  what  is  said. 

III.  The  hypnotized,  when  awake,  generally  knows  nothing 
of  what  took  place  in  the  trance,  but  remembers  it  when  again 
hypnotized.     So  Mrs.  Piper  in  trance  with  a  sitter  who  has 
sat  with  her  before,  but  only  in  trance,  remembers  much  of 
the  previous  sitting,  or  is  "possessed  by  the  same  controls." 

IV.  Hypnotized  persons  are  anesthetic  at  the  will  of  the 
hypnotizer,  and  Mrs.   Piper  is  reported  on  good  authority 
as  anesthetic  in  her  trances,  though  that,  like  everything  else 
about  her,  has  of  course  been  contradicted.    But  so  are  some 
people  virtually  anesthetic  in  ordinary  sleep.     Cf.  ante  my 
John  Fiske  case. 

All  this  raises  the  crucial  question  whether  as  suggested 
in  our  consideration  of  telepathy,  Mrs.  Piper  and  those  like 
her,  after  they  have  willed  themselves  to  sleep,  are  simply 
taken  farther  under  hypnotic  control  by  postcarnate  intelli- 
gences, and  also  hypnotized  by  the  sitter,  and  controlled  by  him 
to  make  some  sort  of  response  to  his  yearning  to  hear  from 
his  loved  and  lost.  My  first  impression  was  that  the  latter 
condition  will  not  hold  at  all :  I  distinctly  did  not  want  her  to 
say  anything  very  intimate  to  me,  and  by  willing  easily  stopped 
her  when  she  started  to.  But  there  is  another  side  to  that 
fact:  perhaps  I  hypnotized  her  not  to,  and  most  sitters  may 
hypnotize  her  to.  Yet  granting  the  existence  of  postcarnate 
intelligences,  their  hypnotizing  of  the  medium  would  of 
course  be  a  good  modus  operandi — so  good  perhaps  as  to 
raise  a  slight  presumption  in  favor  of  the  whole  explanation 
— postcarnate  intelligences  and  all. 

So  much  for  resemblances  to  hypnotic  trance.  As  to 
differences,  I  see  none  in  kind,  but  in  degree  I  see : 


Ch.  L]  How  Far  Hypnotic?  835 

I.  The  absence  of  any  incarnate  hypnotizer  unless  that 
office  may  be  performed  by  the  desires  of  the  sitter  or  tel- 
oteropathically  by  other  incarnate  intelligences ;  though,  every- 
thing considered,  does  this  seem  much  more  likely  than  that 
it  is  performed  by  the  alleged  postcarnate  ones  ? 

II.  The  knowledge  shown,  often  contrary  to  that  of  the 
sitter  or  any  known  possible  hypnotizer. 

III.  The  enormous  variety  of  impersonations,  at  no  obvious 
will,  unless  that  of  the  alleged  impersonators,  which  con- 
stitutes almost  a  difference  in  kind. 

Now  how  far  is  Mrs.  Piper  for  the  time  somebody  else? 
Some  wise  people  say  that  she  is  not  somebody  else,  but 
is  another  self — "  a  thing  of  shreds  and  patches  "  made  up 
of  impressions  from  her  sitter's  mind,  and  other  incarnate 
minds  so  far  as  the  sitter's  mind  is  not  up  to  the  job.  Others 
cannot  see  much  difference  anyhow  between  "  another  self  " 
and  somebody  else,  but  think  somebody  else  is  easier ;  though 
there  seems  no  inconsistency  in  guessing  the  somebody  else 
a  mere  audible  (or  legible  through  the  writing)  and  partly 
visible  (by  gesture)  reflection  of  a  somebody  telepathically 
presented  directly  to  Mrs.  Piper ;  and  if  we  follow  the  record, 
we've  even  got  sometimes  to  give  up  the  "  directly "  and 
recognize  an  intermediary — Phinuit,  G.  P.,  Rector,  and  the 
like. 

The  Divided  Self 

Now  where  do  all  these  personages  speaking  through  the 
sensitives  come  from? 

They  certainly  are  not  mere  impressions  like  those  Foster 
described  to  me,  which  I  believe  reached  him  from  my  own 
mind,  and  which,  when  naturally  and  easily  dramatized  in 
the  responses  to  my  questions,  from  my  father  and  Sextus, 
plainly  were  Foster's  work  and  not  theirs.  But  his  dramatic 
impersonations,  and  the  vast  number  of  Mrs.  Piper's,  give 
inadequately  few  signs  of  being  effected  by  the  sitter, 
and  none  at  all  of  being  within  the  powers  of  any  other 
incarnate  personality  that  ever  lived;  and  to  attribute  them 
to  a  subliminal  self  merely  admits  the  superusual  quality 
of  the  work,  but  does  not  give  the  slightest  explanation  of  it. 

As   the   phenomena   soon    outgrew   the   subliminal   scrap 


836       The  Medium's  Dreams  and  Other  Dreams    [Bk.  Ill 

basket,  as  originally  limited,  each  control  was  assumed  to  be 
a  divided  self — a  secondary  personality  of  the  medium. 

This  idea  of  divided  selves  had  its  origin  in  cases  in  which, 
after  accident  or  nervous  shock  or  deterioration,  memory  is 
affected,  the  patient  forgets  his  past,  or  even  his  identity, 
often  has  to  learn  many  things  or  everything  anew,  and  yet 
retains  faculties  enough  to  become  virtually  a  new  personality. 

Sometimes  reparatory  processes  restore  the  old  personality 
for  the  rest  of  life;  instances  abound  in  which  brain  surgery 
has  restored  the  original  self.  Sometimes  temporary  ameliora- 
tions restore  it  temporarily,  and  the  patient  relapses  into 
the  new  personality;  sometimes  a  farther  deterioration,  a  new 
accident,  or  a  new  shock,  may  knock  out  the  second  person- 
ality, and  a  third  may  supervene,  and  so  on  until,  in  Dr. 
Prince's  Sally  Beauchamp,  there  were  four,  and  in  Dr.  Wil- 
son's case  (Pr.  XVIII,  351f.)  there  were  eleven. 

This  matter  of  the  divided  or  secondary  self  is  so  important 
that  we  had  better  go  into  it  in  some  detail. 

The  most  celebrated  case  is  perhaps  that  of  Ansel  Bourne, 
of  Greene,  Ehode  Island,  who  was  an  atheist,  at  enmity  with 
several  of  his  neighbors,  and  after  a  sunstroke  in  1857,  be- 
came deaf,  dumb,  and  blind,  though  he  did  not  lose  his  con- 
sciousness. While  in  this  condition  he  repented  of  his  atheism 
and  bellicose  disposition,  was  taken  to  church  before  his 
hearing  and  speech  were  restored,  but  under  the  emotions 
aroused  there,  suddenly  recovered  them,  and  made  an  address 
which  greatly  moved  the  congregation,  most  of  whom,  includ- 
ing the  parson,  of  course  thought  his  whole  experience 
"miraculous,"  though  Bourne  at  first  did  not,  but  after  a 
time  apparently  was  persuaded  into  that  view. 

After  thirty  years,  most  of  which  he  spent  as  a  peripatetic 
evangelist,  he  disappeared  from  home,  and  after  an  interval 
of  two  weeks,  of  which  neither  he  nor  anybody  else  knows 
anything,  except  as  stated  later,  turned  up  in  Norristown,  Pa., 
and  opened  and  creditably  conducted  a  little  shop,  under  the 
name  of  A.  J.  Brown.  There  he  was  found  by  his  friends 
eight  weeks  after  his  disappearance. 

Hodgson  gives  a  very  interesting  account  of  the  whole 
experience  in  Pr.  VII,  221-57.  He  says  (p.  231)  that  two 
months  after  the  disappearance : 


Ch.  L]  Ansel  Bourne  837 

"  On  the  morning  of  Monday,  March  14th,  about  five  o'clock, 
he  heard,  he  says,  an  explosion  like  the  report  of  a  gun  or  a 
pistol,  and,  waking,  he  noticed  that  there  was  a  ridge  in  his 

bed  not  like  the  bed  he  had  been  accustomed  to  sleep  in He 

felt  very  weak,  and  thought  that  he  had  been  drugged.  His  next 
sensation  was  that  of  fear,  knowing  that  he  was  in  a  place  where 
he  had  no  business  to  be.  He  feared  arrest  as  a  burglar,  or 
possibly  injury 

"  Hearing  someone  moving  in  another  room  he  rapped  at  the 
door.  Mr.  Earle  opened  it,  and  said,  '  Good  morning,  Mr. 
Brown.'  B. :  '  Where  am  I  ? '  E. :  *  You're  all  right.'  B. :  *  I'm 
all  wrong.  My  name  isn't  Brown.  Where  am  I  ? '  E. :  '  Norris- 
town.'  B.:  'Where  is  that?'  E.:  'In  Pennsylvania.'  B.: 
'  What  part  of  the  country  ? '  E. :  '  About  17  miles  west  of 
Philadelphia.'  B. :  '  What  time  in  the  month  is  it? '  E. :  '  The 
14th.'  B. :  '  Does  time  run  backwards  here  ?  When  I  left  home 
it  was  the  17th.'  E. :  '  17th  of  what  ? '  B. :  '  17th  of  January.' 
E.:  'It's  the  14th  of  March.' 

"  Mr.  Earle  thought  that  '  Mr.  Brown '  was  out  of  his  mind, 
and . . .  summoned  Dr.  Louis  H.  Read,  to  whom  Mr.  Bourne 
told  the  story  of  his  doings  in  Rhode  Island  on  the  morning  of 
January  17th,  and  said  that  he  remembered  nothing  between 
the  time  of  seeing  the  Adams  express  wagons  on  Dorrance-street, 
on  January  17th,  and  waking  up  [in  Norristown.  H.H.]  that 
morning,  March  14th. 

" No  account  was  forthcoming  of  Mr.  Bourne's  doings 

between  the  time  of  his  disappearance  from  Providence  and  his 
advent  in  Norristown  two  weeks  later,  and  Professor  James  con- 
ceived the  idea  that  if  Mr.  Bourne  could  be  hypnotized  we  might 
obtain  from  him  while  in  the  hypnotic  trance  a  complete  history 
of  the  whole  incident,  and  at  the  same  time,  by  post-hypnotic 
suggestion,  prevent  the  recurrence  of  any  such  episode." 

Under  hypnosis  he  declared  his  name  was  Brown,  that  he 
was  born  in  Newton,  New  Hampshire,  July  28,  1826  (he 
was  actually  born  in  New  York  on  that  day),  and  gave  a 
confused  account  of  a  life  not  Bourne's  up  to  the  time  he 
disappeared  in  Rhode  Island.  From  there  on  he  was  clear 
and  correct,  until  the  time  he  heard  the  apparent  explosion 
and  woke  up  as  Ansel  Bourne. 

Under  hypnosis  as  Brown  he  remembered  hearing  of 
Bourne's  experience,  but  did  not  know  whether  he  had  ever 
met  him  or  not. 

His  memory  during  his  "  ambulatory  trance "  appears, 
from  the  accounts  of  persons  he  talked  with,  to  have  been 
better  than  during  the  hypnotic  trance,  and  the  hypnotized 


838       The  Medium's  Dreams  and  Other  Dreams    [Bk.  Ill 

"  Brown  "  grew  less  clear  as  time  went  on,  and  appeared  to 
be  slowly  disintegrating. 

It  was  impossible  to  get  the  hypnotized  "Brown"  to  re- 
member Bourne  at  all,  or  the  normal  Bourne  to  remember 
"  Brown." 

In  connection  with  this  account  Hodgson  gives  some  other 
cases  of  divided  personality,  with  instructive  comments,  and 
there  are  still  more  cases  and  comments  scattered  through 
the  Pr.  S.  P.  R.  Probably  the  most  elaborately  reported  case 
is  that  already  alluded  to  of  Sally  Beauchamp  in  Dr.  Morton 
Prince's  Dissociation  of  a  Personality. 

A  case  very  similar  to  Bourne's,  though  unfortunately  the 
patient  would  not  submit  to  hypnotic  examination,  is  reported 
in  Jour.  S.  P.  E.  CCC,  June,  1913.  It  is  abstracted  from  the 
April  (1913)  number,  Journal  of  the  Am.  S.  P.  R.,  but 
for  my  brief  notice  it  would  be  superfluous  to  go  to  the  original. 
In  brief  the  case  is :  Charles  P.  Brewin,  a  tailor  of  Burling- 
ton, N.  J.,  had,  like  Bourne,  a  sunstroke.  It  was  in  1865,  and 
his  head  frequently  troubled  him.  He  disappeared  from  home 
on  Nov.  9, 1903 ;  nothing  was  known  of  him  for  about  eighteen 
months,  when  he  appeared  under  the  name  of  Frank  Johnson 
in  Plainfield,  N.  J.,  and  lived  there,  as  a  clothes  presser,  until 
about  the  middle  of  1907,  when  he  was  recognized,  and  some 
of  his  relatives  came  to  see  him.  He  did  not  recognize  them, 
but  under  their  stimulation  of  his  memories,  had  a  period  of 
perplexity  with  headache  and  brain  engorgement,  which  cul- 
minated, as  with  Bourne,  in  a  report  "  like  a  pistol  or  gun  or 
cannon  close  to  my  head,"  and  he  came  to  himself,  but  it  took 
time  for  him  to  clear  up  his  Brewin  past;  and  for  him  his 
Johnson  past  had  no  existence.  During  it  he  had  made 
many  statements  regarding  Johnson's  antecedents  and  rela- 
tions which  had  no  basis  in  fact.  He  even  took  out  a  life 
insurance  policy  in  favor  of  an  imaginary  sister.  Of  the 
eighteen  months  before  he  appeared  in  Plainfield,  his  accounts, 
as  Johnson,  could  not  be  verified. 

After  the  Johnson  interval  his  head  became  better  than  the 
sunstroke  had  left  it  before. 

Unlike  most  duplicate  personalities,  the  character,  tastes, 
habits,  and  capacities  of  the  two  were  virtually  identical,  but 
there  was  no  connection  in  memory. 


Ch.  L]  Brewin  839 

Yet  these  imaginations  of  Johnson  were  to  a  considerable 
extent  the  converse  of  experiences  of  Brewin:  e.g.,  Johnson's 
mother  was  said  to  have  died  of  pneumonia  aet.  43 ;  Brewin's 
father  did  so  die  aet.  47.  Johnson's  birth  date  was  given  as 
Feb.  22, 1858;  Brewin's  actually  was  Feb.  22,  1848. 

While  he  was  Johnson,  however,  he  did  dream  of  a  boarding- 
house  in  Asbury  Park  to  which  he  had  gone  summers,  but  he 
had  no  recollection  of  having  been  there,  and  took  it  entirely 
as  a  dream  structure.  He  said  to  Mrs.  Dunn,  his  landlady : 

" '  I  believe  I  could  go  to  Asbury  Park  and  find  that  house.' 
I  [Mrs.  D.]  said :  '  Of  course  it  was  all  a  dream,  and  the  house 
does  not  exist.'  But  he  said  it  all  seemed  so  real  to  him. 

"  On  Monday  morning,  July  1,  1907,  after  Mr.  Brewin's  re- 
turn to  his  primary  personality,  Mrs.  Dunn  told  him  of  this 
dream. 

"  He  at  once  spoke  up : '  Did  I  tell  you  I  dreamed  that  ?  There 
was  just  such  a  place  as  that.  We  went  there  several  successive 

summers '  The  son  confirmed  the  fact  that  they  had  visited 

the  place  described 

"  In  April,  1913,  Mr.  Brewin  was  reported  to  be  still  perfectly 
normal  and  carrying  on  business  on  his  own  account." 

Space  forbids  more  details,  but  Bourne's  case  indicates 
why  some  commentators  believe  that  Mrs.  Piper  is  Phinuit 
or  G.  P.  or  any  one  of  a  thousand  other  people,  just  as 
Bourne  hypnotized  was  Brown;  and  this  despite  the  crucial 
difference  that  Bourne  actually  had  been  Brown  for  two 
months  wide  awake,  while  Mrs.  Piper  never  has  been  Phinuit 
or  G.  P.  or  any  other  of  her  characters,  except  for  an  occa- 
sional hour  when  asleep. 

Yet  some  points  look  like  the  alternate  personality  hypo- 
thesis. 

I.  In  Mrs.  Piper's  trances  characters  do  return  again  and 
again,  as  Brown  returned  to  the  hypnotized  Bourne. 

II.  The  recollections  of  Brown  are  much  like  the  scrappy 
recollections  of  some  of  Mrs.  Piper's  characters:  both  seem 
made  of  "  shreds  and  patches "  which  may  be  telepathed 
subliminal  memories  from  somewhere  or  dribbles  from  the 
cosmic  reservoir. 

III.  Brown  faded  out,  and  so  to  some  extent  have  Mrs. 
Piper's  characters,  but  especially  as  her  psycho-kinesis  has 


840       The  Medium's  Dreams  and  Other  Dreams    [Bk.  Ill 

deteriorated  with  advancing  years.  They  say  they  are  moving 
on  to  higher  spheres.  Perhaps  Brown  did,  if  Bourne  was 
"  possessed  "  by  him. 

IV.  The  seemingly  explosive  reports  that  restored  Bourne 
and  Brewin  to  themselves  are  enormously  like  Mrs.  Piper's 
"snap"  (see  p.  862). 

But  all  these  points  of  resemblance  seem  to  me  to  weigh 
nothing  in  face  of  the  facts  that: 

I.  None  of  her  characters  could  ever  be  purposely  hypno- 
tized back  by  anybody  else,  as  Brown  was  from  Bourne.    They 
always  came  at  their  own  sweet  wills — Phinuit  from  general 
sociability,  G.  P.  from  interest  in  his  friends,  and  in  helping 
sitters  and  promoting  the  truth;  controls  generally  from  in- 
terest in  their  friends;  the  Imperator  group  from  general 
benevolence  and  a  fondness  for  preaching,  etc. 

II.  Mrs.  Piper's  characters  are  generally  on  hand  when 
wanted :  divided  selves  are  as  uncertain  as  the  wind. 

III.  Mrs.  Piper's  characters  (with  the  possible  exception 
of  Phinuit  and  the  Imperator  gang,  for  which  exceptions, 
reasons  abound),  are  generally  persons  whom  her  sitters  knew, 
and,  with  good  sitters,  are  those  persons  to  the  life.    There  is 
nothing  like  this  about  what  are  usually  considered  secondary 
personalities. 

IV.  The  non-sensitives,  as  already  said,  where  a  cause  has 
been  known,  have  put  on  their  later  personalities  in  conse- 
quence of  brain  injury.     The  manifestations  of  the  sensitives 
proceed  from  nothing  of  the  kind.     This  seems  conclusive. 
Half -informed  people  have  held  "  mediumship,"  whatever  it 
may  be,  to  consist  of  morbid  manifestations,  like  the  half- 
crazed  dreams  of  the  middle-age  ascetics,  but  on  the  con- 
trary, the  mediums  are  at  their  best  when  in  their  best 
health;  and  the  temperate  exercise  of  their  powers,  like  that 
of  normal  powers  generally,  seems  essential  to  their  best 
health. 

Drs.  Tanner  and  Hall  succeeded  in  bullying  the  Hodgson 
manifestation  into  confusion  enough  to  enable  them  to  crowd 
and  twist  him  into  their  mold  for  secondary  personalities, 
and  they  appear  to  have  convinced  themselves  that  each  of 
the  characters  manifested  by  Mrs.  Piper  is  another  one.  If 
such  careful  and  competent  students  find  the  evidences  for 


Ch.  L]  Secondary  Personality  841 

spiritism  so  strong  as  to  call  out  in  opposition  such  over- 
straining of  probability  and  forcing  of  possibility  against  it, 
the  evidence  must  be  very  strong  indeed. 

I  cannot  recall  any  case  of  telepathic  power  in  a  victim  of 
the  ordinary  undoubted  incarnate  secondary  personality  ex- 
perience resulting  from  an  imaginable  injury  or  deterioration. 

V.  The  knowledge  gained  by  the  sensitive,  under  the  sec- 
ondary-personality hypothesis,  depends  on  the  incarnate  tele- 
pathic hypothesis,  and  probable  as  telepathy  or  even  telo- 
teropathy  is  in  many  cases,  in  many  others  it  seems  to  be 
shattered  by  the  failure  of  the  mediums  to  get  things  appar- 
ently vastly  easier  to  get  telepathically  than  the  things  they 
do  get.     One  such  case  as  this  of  course  does  more  to  disprove 
incarnate  telepathy  than  many  cases  where  the  medium  tells 
the  whole  story  go  to  prove  it. 

VI.  To  assume  that  the  alleged  spirits  are  only  the  sen- 
sitive's secondary  personalities  acting  on  telepathic  knowledge 
requires  a  motive.     Now  to  fasten  a  motive  on  to  a  secondary 
personality  is  a  ticklish  job,  more  ticklish  perhaps  than  the 
acceptance  of  the  spiritistic  theory.     We  know  precious  little 
about  secondary  personalities,  but  that  little  by  no  means 
denotes  a  constant  regard  by  the  secondary  personality  for 
the  comfort  of  the  primary  one  or  anybody  else.    The  third 
Sally  Beauchamp  enjoyed  nothing  more  than  putting  the  first 
Sally  in  a  hole.    It  will  not  do,  therefore,  to  assume  that  there 
were  scores  of  Mrs.  Thompsons  working  to  amuse  her  friends ; 
or  of  secondary  Fosters  for  the  same  motive  plus  five  dollars  a 
sitting  to  the  original   Foster;   or  hundreds   of   secondary 
Mrs.  Pipers  play-acting  to  get  for  the  original  Mrs.  Piper 
ten  dollars  a  sitting  and  whatever  notoriety  and  social  con- 
nections the  sittings  might  secure. 

VII.  The  only  other  visible  alternatives  seem  to  be  that 
the  hypothetic  secondary  personalities  did  it  all  for  fun  or  out 
of  pure  cussedness:  for  secondary  personalities  are  often  in- 
clined that  way.     Nearly  thirty  years,  however,  is  a   long 
time  for  the  sport  to  hold  its  zest.     I've  met  no  record  but 
Mrs.  Piper's  of  its  even  seeming  to  do  so.    On  the  contrary, 
all  other  alleged  subsidiary  personalities  have  been  very  un- 
stable and  ephemeral:  if  the  organism  holding  them  doesn't 
soon  get  rid  of  them,  it  dies.    Foster  was  a  healthy  man  for 


843       The  Medium's  Dreams  and  Other  Dreams    [Bk.  Ill 

many  years.  Mrs.  Thompson  is  well  at  last  accounts,  and 
Mrs.  Piper  is  enjoying  a  healthy  old  age. 

VIII.  I  do  not  recall  an  unquestionable  secondary  person- 
ality who  professed  to  be  of  the  opposite  sex  from  the  original. 

Do  not  these  eight  considerations  seem  to  dispose  of  the 
secondary-personality  hypothesis,  and  even  more  effectually 
of  the  tertiary,  quaternary,  and  millenary  personality  hypo- 
thesis— that  each  new  personality  enacted  by  the  medium 
is  a  new  subsidiary  personality  of  the  medium's  self,  selecting 
from  other  and  often  incarnate  minds  just  the  set  of  facts 
needed  for  the  enactment  of  the  character  in  question?  Again, 
credat  Judaaus! 

The  subliminal  hypothesis,  then  (except  as  a  name  for  the 
cosmic  inflow  hypothesis),  meaning  nothing,  and  the  sec- 
ondary-personality hypothesis  being  counter  to  the  facts  from 
which  it  got  its  name,  what  are  the  personalities?  All  sorts 
of  ingenuity  have  been  at  work  to  make  them  out  some  sort 
of  voluntary  or  involuntary  concoctions  of  Mrs.  Piper.  But 
admitting  that  she  got  the  material  for  them  telepathically 
from  the  sitter  or  teloteropathically  from  other  incarnate 
minds,  who  worked  this  material  up  into  characters  truer  and 
more  varied,  though  of  course  not  more  interesting,  than 
Shakespere's,  and  did  it  on  the  spur  of  the  moment?  Some 
say  her  subliminal  self  did.  That  merely  gives  the  agency  a 
name  and  explains  nothing  unless,  as  aforesaid,  the  sub- 
liminal self  is  the  cosmic  soul,  in  which  case  the  characters 
exist  as  parts  of  it,  and  are  not  made  by  Mrs.  Piper  at  all, 
but  only  manifested  through  her,  as  they  profess  to  be. 

Telepathic  impressions  demonstralyly  from  incarnate  minds, 
so  far  as  I  know,  have  never,  except  when  consciously  willed 
by  hypnotizers,  gone  to  the  length  of  imitating  or  enacting 
or  personating  anybody.  There  are  plenty  of  illustrations  of 
the  subject's  feeling  the  agent's  sensations  and  making  reflex 
actions  like  grimacing  over  bad  tastes,  or  touching  aching 
spots,  but  no  indications  of  his  doing,  in  response  to  uncon- 
scious volition  of  the  agent,  any  act  like  the  long  impersona- 
tions of  the  controls.  In  fact  an  assertion  of  his  doing  so 
would  be  hard  to  substantiate:  for  the  hypnotizer  could  not 
recollect  an  unconscious  volition,  if  such  a  thing  is  not  a 
contradiction  in  terms. 


Ch.  L]    Affection,  Desire  to  Convince  and  to  Help         843 

Again:  although  a  medium  may  get  knowledge  of  many 
kinds  of  telepathy,  where  does  the  initiative  shown  by  the 
alleged  controls  come  from?  When  things  said  or  done  by 
or  through  Mrs.  Piper  entranced,  are  things  that  Mrs.  Piper 
in  her  normal  senses  never  would  do,  when  Phinuit's  slang 
and  swearing  come  from  her  mouth,  the  anti-spiritists  say  it 
is  from  her  secondary  personality,  because  secondary  person- 
alities sometimes  swear  when  their  primaries  do  not.  But 
Mrs.  Piper's  other  signs  are  not  of  secondary  personalities. 
When  I  made  somebody  impatient  by  asking  for  tests,  who 
answered :  "  Do  you  want  me  to  tell  you  the  length  of  your 
grandfather's  cat's  tail  ? "  It  was  not  I,  nor  was  it  Mrs. 
Piper.  When  somehow  (but  not  from  me,  as  I  did  not  know 
it)  somebody  learned  that  A  was  in  trouble,  and  B  trying  to 
help  him,  who  initiated  the  request  to  me  to  find  out  about 
it  and  lend  a  hand?  Who  was  interested  in  this  but  A's 
friend  and  mine,  G.  P.? 

Where  does  the  emotion  come  from?  When  somebody 
learned  that  my  drowned  cousin  wanted  me  to  tell  his  mother 
that  he  was  still  living  under  changed  conditions,  who  supplied 
the  feeling  in  his  impassioned  entreaty?  What  occasion  had 
Mrs.  Piper,  or  anybody  but  the  boy  himself,  for  that  feeling? 
In  the  many  similar  cases,  why  should  Mrs.  Piper  have  "  sec- 
ondary selves  "  feeling  all  these  interests  ?  Why  should  her 
subliminal  self  or  dissociated  personality  exhibit  all  this 
yearning  love  for  people  she  never  saw? 

Nearly  all  the  utterances  of  the  alleged  communicators  in 
the  Pr.  S.  P.  R.,  from  philosophers  down  to  children,  are  full 
of  eager  desire  to  convince  their  friends  of  their  survival  and 
happiness;  and  the  motives  for  doing  so  range  all  the 
way  from  the  scientific  enthusiasms  of  G.  P.,  Myers,  and 
Hodgson  down  to  the  lisping  filial  affection  of  the  Thaw 
babies. 

Almost  equally  prominent  is  the  desire  to  help  everybody, 
from  bereaved  parents  to  those  whose  interest  in  the  subject 
is  merely  that  of  enlightened  curiosity. 

These  three  features — intense  affection  for  people  Mrs. 
Piper  never  heard  of,  desire  to  convince  everybody  of  sur- 
vival, and  desire  to  help  everybody — are  hard  to  account  for 
as  mere  unconscious  personations  of  the  medium — all  harder 


844:       The  Medium's  Dreams  and  Other  Dreams    [Bk.  Ill 

to  account  for,  perhaps,  than  the  verisimilitude  of  the  me- 
dium's dramatizations,  and  the  superusual  knowledge;  still 
harder  as  coming  from  divided  selves:  for,  as  already  said, 
Tcnown  divided  selves  are  pretty  generally  full  of  cussedness. 
So  far  as  I  can  weigh  the  proposed  answers,  the  simplest 
is  that  she  did  not  get  those  three  things  at  all — that  she 
simply  was  able  to  let  the  characters  themselves,  as  parts  of 
the  cosmic  stream,  flow,  at  least  telepathically,  through  her 
organism — not  very  congruous  terms,  I  fear;  but  we  are  be- 
yond the  region  of  constant  congruities. 

If  she  acts  merely  for  the  sake  of  acting,  why  does  she 
(Pace  Phinuit  and  the  Imperator  gang)  act  solely  characters 
in  which  her  sitters  are  interested,  and  characters  that  have 
lived?  Why  is  she  entirely  free  from  the  tendency  of  other 
actors  to  enact  the  more  interesting  characters  made  by 
Shakespere  and  Hugo  and  Bulwer?  She  knows  Hamlet  and 
Macbeth  and  Puck  better  than  she  knows  the  sitter's  friends, 
whom  she  never  heard  of.  One  answer  of  course  is  that,  as 
aforesaid,  she  reads  his  friends  from  his  mind.  But  is  she 
so  hypnotized  by  him  that  no  character  can  well  up  from 
her  own  mind  ?  Isn't  it  a  more  "  likely  "  answer  that  she  is 
not  acting  at  all — that  as  there  appear  only  people  interested 
in  the  sitters,  they  come  for  that  reason,  and  act  themselves  ? 
Is  not  this  as  probable  as  that  this  average  New  England 
woman,  and  others  like  her,  out-Shakespere  Shakespere  ? 

Foster,  conscious,  gets  an  impression  and  repeats  it  to  me. 
That's  easily  understood.  Mrs.  Piper,  unconscious,  gets  an 
impression.  Now  who  repeats  it  to  me  ?  But  X  is  hypnotized 
and  unconscious  and  gets  an  impression  and  repeats  it. 
Why,  then,  is  not  Mrs.  Piper  hypnotized  when,  though  uncon- 
scious, she  repeats  hers?  But  she  receives  and  repeats  to-day 
as  Phinuit,  to-morrow,  or  the  next  second,  as  George  Pelham, 
or  Edmund  Gurney.  And  no  visible  person  hypnotizes  her 
into  doing  it,  unless  the  sitter  hypnotizes  her  unconsciously. 
But  he  doesn't:  people  he  knows  nothing  of,  pop  up  con- 
stantly, and  she  generally  does  the  trick  just  as  those  persons 
would;  and  the  impressions  and  expressions  conveyed  are  not 
Mrs.  Piper's  or  the  sitter's.  Apparently,  Mrs.  Piper  has 
nothing  to  do  with  it :  she  is  only  and  literally  a  "  medium." 


Ch.  L]        Subliminal  Selves  from  Cosmic  Soul  845 

If  the  appearances  are  deceitful,  she  dramatizes  and  acts  as 
no  conscious  genius  in  the  world  ever  could. 

An  explanation  of  all  this,  on  a  par  with  the  mere  names 
subliminal  self  and  alternate  selves,  is  a  statement  often  made 
that  the  entity  bearing  either  of  those  names  "  is  an  actor." 
But  Mrs.  Piper  is  equally  a  dramatist.  As  for  any  secondary 
or  divided  self,  as  distinct  from  the  subliminal  self,  being  an 
actor,  to  my  limited  knowledge  no  properly  attested  one  has 
ever  been  any  such  thing,  but  a  perfectly  straightforward 
diseased  personality  that  is  no  more  like  Foster  or  Mrs.  Piper 
or  Mrs.  Thompson  than  like  you  or  me. 

But  there  is  a  thinkable  condition  under  which  one  may 
well  hold  the  subliminal  self  both  dramatist  and  actor:  for 
there  seems  a  vague,  but  maybe  immense,  probability  that 
the  subliminal  self  enacts  the  whole  life  of  every  creature 
that  has  life  at  all,  and  that  the  subliminal  selves  of  all  these 
creatures  are  One.  That  would  vaguely  explain  why  some- 
times one  of  the  creatures,  like  Foster  or  Mrs.  Piper  or  Mrs. 
Thompson,  expresses  so  many  of  them. 

When  some  students  say:  "It  wasn't  the  ordinary  Mrs. 
Piper :  it  was  her  subliminal  self,"  they  also  say :  "  It  wasn't 
the  ordinary  Mr.  Shakespere:  it  was  his  subliminal  self," 
and  they  go  on  to  say :  "  His  subliminal  self  came  to  the 
surface  easier  than  other  people's,  and  that's  the  reason  he's 
a  bigger  genius."  If  you  notice,  none  of  them  ever  said :  "  His 
subliminal  self  is  bigger " :  they  only  say :  "  It  comes  to  the 
surface  easier."  Doesn't  this  tacitly  imply  that,  although 
they  have  outgrown  the  democratic  fallacy  that  one  man  is 
as  good  as  another,  they  yet  believe  one  subliminal  self  is  as 
good  as  another — holds  everything,  at  least  every  memory  that 
was  ever  put  before  it — everything  that  was  ever  understood, 
or  only  sensed,  even  though  it  were  Hebrew  words  repeated 
before  a  British  or  Irish  servant  girl  ?  One  subliminal  is  as 
good  as  another,  only  one  gets  above  the  threshold  and  gets 
to  work  easier  than  another;  and  that's  really  all  the  im- 
portant difference  in  men.  Now  this  begins  to  grow  inter- 
esting. One  man  looks  like  a  god — whatever  that  may  mean : 
I  suppose  it  means  that  he  looks  all  we  can  imagine  of  good- 
ness and  intelligence;  another  man  looks  like  John  Smith. 


846       The  Medium's  Dreams  and  Other  Dreams    [Bk.  Ill 

The  first  man  can  write  Comus  or  Faust ;  but  he  can't  describe 
all  your  dead  or  absent  friends,  and  tell  you  what  they're 
doing  at  the  other  side  of  the  earth,  and  possibly  a  little  of 
what  they're  doing  outside  of  the  earth;  while  the  man  who 
looks  like  John  Smith  can,  though  he  cannot  write  Comus 
or  Faust ;  his  subliminal  is  as  big  as  Milton's  or  Goethe's,  but 
different,  just  as  theirs  differed  from  each  other.  I  think  I 
am  safe  in  saying  that  the  authorities  generally  pause  before 
the  subliminal  of  the  humblest  man  as  before  something  un- 
limited. Mrs.  Piper,  supraliminal,  is  by  no  means  an  ex- 
traordinary person;  but  beside  her  subliminal,  all  Banquo's 
descendants  are  nothing.  This  is  a  big  proposition,  but 
apparently  you've  got  to  concede  either  it  or  spiritism — or 
say  you  don't  know — or  don't  want  to  play.  But  if  you  do 
enter  the  game,  apparently  you  must  concede  one  or  the  other. 
I'm  not  playing,  but  merely  guessing;  and  I  guess  I'll  guess 
both — that  what  we  call  Mrs.  Piper's  subliminal  self,  or 
yours,  or  mine,  is  as  big  as  anybody  can  imagine — and  bigger — 
big  enough  to  hold  not  only  Phinuit  and  George  P.  and  Mr.  E. 
and  the  rest,  but  all  the  consciousness  in  the  universe;  and  it 
has  been  called  the  cosmic  consciousness,  the  world-soul,  and 
many  other  names,  all  meaning,  so  far  as  our  poor  words  for 
such  a  thing  can  have  meaning,  the  same  thing. 

I  guess,  too,  that  maybe  the  cosmic  soul  passes  through 
Mrs.  Piper  as  people  who  have  lived  our  life,  and  perhaps 
as  some  who  only  say  they  have;  and  I  guess  that  when 
Shakespere  was  what  we  call  "  inspired,"  it  was  the  cosmic 
soul  that  passed  through  him,  as  Lear  or  Mercutio  or  other 
people  that  live  longer  and  effect  more  than  most  of  Mrs. 
Piper's  people  ever  did.  They  don't  live  in  the  same  way, 
or  effect  the  same  things,  and  whether  they  enjoy  themselves 
more,  or  as  much  or  at  all,  is  a  question.  But  as  I  am  writing 
about  our  cosmic  relations  in  general,  perhaps  I  would  better 
repeat  from  this  point  of  view  that  I  guess,  as  most  of  us 
do,  that  the  Power  greater  than  even  Shakespere,  who  makes 
creatures  that  enjoy,  set  these  balls  rolling  for  that  very  pur- 
pose, and  flows  into  individualities  in  order  that  increasing 
myriads  may  enjoy.  Yet  as  it  flows  into  each  little  rill,  it  is 
still  itself,  and  we  cannot  imagine  its  limitation  or  extinc- 
tion. 


Ch.  L]    Medium,  Sitter,  and  Communicator  Blend         847 

The  phenomena  of  the  best  medium  seldom,  if  ever,  seem 
to  depend  solely  on  the  medium's  volition,  or  telepathy  or 
teloteropathy  or  spiritism.  Wherever  one  of  these  seems  dom- 
inant, the  case  is  apt  to  be  qualified  by  one  or  more  of  the 
others.  In  the  manifestations  that  to  the  faithful  appear 
most  convincingly  spiritistic,  there  is  generally  distinctly  trace- 
able a  qualification  from  the  medium  or  the  sitter  or  both. 

And  why  should  there  not  be? — especially  if  to  control, 
medium  and  sitter,  we  are  to  add,  as  often  declared  by  the 
controls,  a  medium  on  the  other  side — Phinuit  or  G.  P.  or 
Rector,  speaking  for  people  who  can't  "get  through"  their 
messages  themselves? 

Leaving  spiritism  entirely  out  of  the  question,  we  know 
from  innumerable  cases  of  admitted  telepathy,  that  mind  is 
much  more  pervasive,  fluid,  shall  I  say  contagious?  (every 
word  is  of  course  a  metaphor)  than  it  was  realized  to  be  a 
generation  ago;  and  if  you  are  going  to  admit  a  discarnate 
mind  behind  the  phenomena,  you  must  expect  it  tinged  by  the 
channel  through  which  it  has  flowed  or  has  sympathetically 
touched.  (More  metaphor!  We  have  nothing  else.)  Where, 
in  the  original  stream,  there  are  strong  obstructions,  or  lack 
of  vigor  or  fullness,  the  tinges  from  other  streams  may  dom- 
inate its  original  color,  and  even  make  it  appear  something  else. 

I  have  said  all  this  before,  and  will  probably  have  to  say 
it  again  before  it  will  be  clearly  understood  by  you — or  me — 
or  anybody  else.  But  I  trust  that  it  clears  up  a  little  at  each 
statement. 

It  is  all  as,  on  the  spiritistic  hypothesis,  we  would  expect 
it  to  be.  If  there  are  postcarnate  intelligences,  with  the  appar- 
ent means  of  communication  we  have  no  reason  to  expect  clear 
and  unadulterated  flows  of  personality.  Remember  Hodgson 
on  this  point,  in  Chapter  XXXIV.  Conversely,  if  we  find 
turgid  flows  of  personality,  their  turgidity  is  one  reason, 
though  far  from  a  conclusive  one,  for  supposing  them  post- 
carnate. 


CHAPTER  LI 
THE  MAKING  OF  A  MEDIUM 

IN  Hodgson's  first  report  on  Mrs.  Piper,  and  in  the  reports 
regarding  the  heteromatic  writing  of  Stainton  Moses,  Mrs. 
Verrall,  and  Mrs.  Holland,  we  have  had  hints  of  how  mediums 
are  developed. 

There  is  a  good  deal  to  think  about  in  the  embryology,  so 
to  speak,  of  some  other  mediums  who  never  matured. 

First  a  little  experience  of  my  own. 

That  the  cosmic  "  inflow  "  is  something  more  than  a  mere 
metaphor  is  not  only  generally  stated  by  the  use  of  the  cor- 
responding term  inspiration,  but  could  undoubtedly  be  spe- 
cifically vouched  for  by  the  experience  of  many  people  far 
below  the  grade  of  prophets  and  poets,  as  it  can  be  by  mine. 
To  take  an  instance  out  of  many :  this  morning  as  I  was  dress- 
ing, my  daughter  was  playing  some  of  the  music  in  the 
oriental  "spirit"  (note  the  word)  of  "  Sumurun."  I  re- 
flected how  composers  can  catch  a  note  of  a  people  not  their 
own — Mendelssohn,  of  Scotland;  Bizet,  of  Spain;  Dvorak, 
of  our  Southern  negroes;  McDowell,  of  our  Indians.  Then 
I  began  attempts  at  whistling  the  oriental  "  spirit."  I  did  not 
feel  at  all  sure  that  I  could  get  what  I  wanted,  but  in  a  few 
moments  it  flowed  in  very  freely,  and  before  long  there  came 
readily  real  oriental  expressions  of  a  variety  of  emotions — in 
dance  tunes,  serenades,  triumphal  marches,  funeral  marches, 
what  not;  and  I  half  felt  myself  in  oriental  costume  amid 
oriental  surroundings.  Had  the  sensitiveness  which  Phinuit 
(or  Mrs.  Piper)  felt  in  me  been  born  and  cultivated  to  the 
degree  of  hers  or  Foster's,  probably  I  might  have  felt  myself 
some  specific  oriental  person,  and  talked  and  acted  the  part, 
as  I  was  already  whistling  and  thumping  it.  And  instead 
of  taking  minutes  to  get  into  it,  I  might  have  done  it  as 
promptly  as  they  do. 

Now  I  did  not  "work  myself  up"  to  this,  certainly  not 

848 


Ch.  LI]  The  Tout  Case  849 

after  the  first  minute  or  two,  but  it  began  trickling  in,  and 
soon  came  with  a  rush. 

I  find  no  difficulty  in  realizing  how,  in  a  developed  sensitive, 
perhaps  with  a  little  telepathic  and  hypnotic  help  from  a 
sitter  or  somebody  else,  it  could  have  become  a  personality, 
and  been  acted  out  as  the  sensitives  act  out  personalities. 

It  is  a  long  saltus,  though,  to  such  a  personality  being  an 
actual  one  that  has  previously  lived.  Are  the  steps  I  have 
described,  in  the  direction  of  such  a  saltus,  and  do  they  give 
an  impulse  toward  it?  If  you  can  get  a  general  personality, 
why  not  a  specific  one,  if  a  specific  one  wants  to  come  ?  And 
Mrs.  Piper  got  hundreds,  probably  thousands,  of  personalities 
that  she  never  knew,  so  that  their  friends  recognized  them. 

The  Tout  Case 

Here  is  an  experience  more  specific  than  mine,  of  a  greater 
sensitiveness,  and  one  nearer  the  degree  of  the  famous  ones. 
It  is  in  an  exceedingly  interesting  article  by  Principal  Tout, 
of  Buckland  College,  Vancouver,  describing  his  feelings  under 
mediumistic ( ?)  sensibilities.  I  regret  the  necessity  of  con- 
densing it.  He  says  (Pr.  XI,  310f.) : 

"  I  dropped  in  one  evening  upon  some  friends,  professed 
'  spiritualists ' . . .  and  we  sat . . .  for  manifestations.  After 
about  half  an  hour  I  felt  a  strange  sensation  stealing  over  me. 
...  I  seemed  to  have,  as  it  were,  stepped  aside,  and  some  other 

intelligence   was   now   controlling   my   organism The   very 

features  of  my  face  seemed  to  be  changing,  and  I  was  distinctly 
conscious  of  assuming  the  look  of  a  fond  and  devoted  mother 
looking  down  upon  her  child.  I  even  inwardly  smiled  as  I 
thought  how  ridiculous  I  must  be  looking,  but  I  made  no  effort 
to  resist  the  impulse ...  to  take  my  friend  in  my  arms  and 

soothe  and  cheer  him After  a  little  while  I  became  myself 

again.  My  friend  was  confident  that  I  had  been  influenced  by 
the  spirit  of  his  dead  mother,  as  he  had  had  a  distinct  im- 
pression of  her  presence.  I  shall  show  presently  how  very 
susceptible  I  became,  under  like  conditions,  to  all  kinds  of  sug- 
gestion; and  if  this  fact  be  taken  into  consideration  here,  I 
think  it  will  adequately  account  for  what  took  place  without 
resorting  to  my  friend's  hypothesis." 

Where  did  the  suggestion  come  from? 

"  However,  I  am  bound  to  state  as  against  this  view  that  I 
afterwards  learnt  that  he  was  in  trouble  and  worry  over  his 


850  The  Making  of  a  Medium  [Bk.  Ill 

business,  and  was  in  need  of  cheering  and  encouragement;  and 
that,  moreover,  a  few  months  later,  a  terrible  calamity  overtook 

him  in  the  loss  of  two  of  his  children  by  drowning For  the 

rest  of  that  evening  and  most  of  the  next  day  I  experienced  a 
most  delightful  sense  of  rest  and  contentment,  and  a  feeling  of 
relief  from  the  strain  and  worry  of  life,  as  if  somebody  else 
had  taken  the  burden  off  my  shoulders  on  to  his  own. 

"  The  night  following  [I  was]  at  the  home  of  another  believer 
in  spiritism.  This  gentleman's  wife  is  mediumistic  . . .  after  a 
little  singing  which  closed  with  the  hymn  '  Nearer,  my  God,  to 
Thee,'  she  asked  me  if  any  relative  of  mine  had  died  from  lung 
trouble,  as  she  was  suddenly  experiencing  a  great  difficulty  and 
pain  in  breathing ...  I  acknowledged  that  my  father  had  died 
from  lung  trouble.  At  this  she,  or  rather  (as  she  expressed  it), 
the  influence  which  she  called  my  father,  manifested  satisfaction 
. . .  the  hymn  we  had  been  singing  when  the  impression  came  upon 
her,  viz.,  '  Nearer,  my  God,  to  Thee,'  had  been  a  great  favorite 
with  him ...  at  every  subsequent  meeting,  the  singing  of  this 
hymn  always  produced  in  her  when  we  were  both  present  to- 
gether the  same  sensations ;  and  . . .  later  upon  myself. 

" I  was  still  unable  to  regard  what  had  occurred  as  in 

any  sense  a  satisfactory  proof  of  spirit  communion,  or  of  the 
persistence  of  my  father's  personality,  and  still  less  can  I  do 
so  to-day. 

"  A  little  time  after  this ...  I  began  to  manifest  a  phase  of 
mediumship  myself,  or  so  the  sitters  regarded  it ...  every  me- 
dium I  had  so  far  met  had  always  informed  me  that  I  possessed 
mediumistic  powers. 

"  While  the  table  is  rapping  out  answers  . . .  those  of  impres- 
sionable temperament  are  liable . . .  when  the  interest  in  the 
questions  and  answers  flags,  to  find  the  power  centering  in  them- 
selves. On  this  particular  occasion  I  was  affected  to  an  un- 
usual degree,  experiencing  violent  twitchings  in  my  limbs,  and 
sensations  of  painful  chilliness  that  made  my  teeth  chatter 
again. . . .  All  sorts  of  impulses  seemed  to  be  moving  me,  and 
I  noticed  how  susceptible  I  was  becoming  to  the  slightest,  even 
half-realised  suggestion  offered  by  the  course  of  my  own 
thoughts,  or  by  the  chance  remarks  made  by  the  other  sitters. 
I  presently  felt  myself  being  drawn,  as  it  seemed  to  me.  towards 
the  floor  on  the  left  side  of  my  chair.  I  yielded  to  the  influ- 
ence and  fell  prostrate  . . .  and  though  the  others  thought  I  must 
have  hurt  myself,  I  certainly  felt  no  inconvenience  from  the 
fall.  I  lay  groaning  for  a  little  while  and  then  got  up  and 
sat  in  my  chair  again. 

"  Someone  now  suggested  that  we  should  sing,  and ...  I  im- 
mediately became  affected  by  the  music ...  in  a  great  cathedral 
I  seemed  to  be  the  presiding  priest  at  the  close  of  a  great  func- 
tion pronouncing  the  benediction.  I  appeared  to  be  looking 
down  from  a  great  height  upon  the  congregation  and,  lifting 


Ch.  LI]  The  Tout  Case  851 

my  hands,  I  went  through  the  form  of  blessing  them In  all 

these  phases  or  states ...  I  seemed  to  be  two  individuals, — one 
my  ordinary,  critical,  observant  self,  closely  watching  what 
took  place  in  and  around  me,  the  other  the  character  that  seemed 
to  be  personating  itself  through  me.  Presently,  with  a  change 
in  the  music,  the  scene  changed  and  I  now  became  an  operatic 
singer.  I  sang  with  impassioned  tones  several  notes  above  my 
normal  compass  pleading  and  gesticulating  to  some  invisible 
but  felt  female  presence  in  the  air  above  me.  I  have  no  recol- 
lection of  the  words  I  uttered.  There  were  moments  . . .  when  I 

lost  consciousness  of  myself  and  surroundings 

" The  scene  again  abruptly  changed Being  familiar 

with  the  abrupt  changes  sometime  produced  in  the  hypnotic  by 
the  varying  suggestions  of  his  operator,  [I]  accounted  for  my 
own  sudden  change  of  character  in  the  same  way.  And  I  do  not 
doubt  that,  of  the  dozen  or  more  personalities  I  characterized 
that  night,  every  one  was  due  to  a  suggestion  of  my  own  mind, 
or  to  something  in  my  immediate  environment." 

But  what  ?  "  Immediate  environment "  opens  the  way  for 
almost  anything. 

" The  hymn  '  Nearer,  my  God,  to  Thee '  was  started. 

...  I  stood  up  and  began  to  sway  to  and  fro,  and  soon  I  seemed 
to  be  far  away  in  space and  a  sense  of  coldness  and  loneli- 
ness oppressed  me  terribly.  I  seemed  to  be  moving,  or  rather  to 
be  drawn  downward,  and  presently  felt  that  I  had  reached  this 
earth  again;  but  all  was  strange  and  fearful  and  lonely,  and  I 
seemed  to  be  disappointed  that  I  could  not  attain  the  object 
of  this  long  and  lonely  journey.  I  felt  I  was  looking  for  some 
one,  but  did  not  seem  to  have  a  clear  notion  of  whom  it  was, 
and  as  the  hopelessness  of  my  search  and  the  fruitlessness  of  my 
long  journey  forced  itself  upon  me,  I  cried  out  in  my  wretched- 
ness . . .  and  I  should  have  fallen  to  the  ground  but  that  the 
other  sitters  had  gathered  round  me,  and  some  of  them  held  my 
hands." 

Does  not  this  closely  resemble  the  state  of  mind  which  the 
alleged  controls  generally  seem  to  experience  before  their 
alleged  return  through  the  alleged  mediums  to  alleged  com- 
munication with  their  alleged  earthly  friends?  But  to  con- 
tinue : 

" The  lady  who  had  experienced  the  oppression  on  her 

lungs  at  the  first  singing  of  this  hymn,  made  the  remark,  which 
I  remember  to  have  overheard,  '  It's  his  father  controlling  him,' 
and  I  then  seemed  to  realize  who  I  was  and  whom  T  was  seeking. 
I  began  to  be  distressed  in  my  lungs  and  should  again  have 
fallen,  if  they  had  not  held  me  by  the  hands  and  let  me  back 
gently  upon  the  floor.  As  my  head  sank  back  upon  the  carpet, 


852  The  Making  of  a  Medium  [Bk.  Ill 

I  experienced  dreadful  distress  in  my  lungs  and  could  not 
breathe.  I  made  signs  to  them  to  put  something  under  my 
head.  They  immediately  put  the  sofa  cushions  under  me,  but . . . 
I  was  not  raised  high  enough  yet  to  breathe  easily,  and  they  then 
added  a  pillow.  I  have  the  most  distinct  recollection  of  the 
sigh  of  relief  I  now  gave  as  I  sank  back  like  a  sick,  weak  person 
upon  the  cool  pillow 

" I  have  a  clear  memory  of  seeing  myself  in  the  char- 
acter of  my  dying  father  lying  in  the  bed  and  the  room  in  which 
he  died. ...  I  saw  his  shrunken  hands  and  face,  and  lived  again 
through  his  dying  moments;  only  now  I  was  both  myself, — in 
some  indistinct  sort  of  way, — and  my  father,  with  his  feelings 
and  appearance. 

"  Presently  the  sense  of  loneliness  came  over  me  again.  I ... 
cried  out  for  my  son,  that  is  for  myself.  I  continued  in  great 
distress,  though  the  others  assured  me  that  my  son  was  there 
present.  I  suppose  the  suggestion  took  effect,  as  I  presently 
seemed  to  be  holding  and  fondling  myself  as  the  son  I  came 

to  speak  with We  communed  together  and  comforted  each 

other,  and  all  the  little  misunderstandings  of  the  old  days  were 
made  clear;  and  I  made  him  understand  that  as  a  man  and  a 
father  myself,  I  was  now  better  able  to  appreciate  his  attitude 
towards  me  in  the  past.  As  a  boy,  I  had  always  regarded  him 
as  very  harsh  and  had  no  warm  feelings  for  him,  and  it  seemed 
as  if  the  knowledge  on  his  part  of  this  fact  had  made  him  restless 
and  unhappy  ever  since  his  death,  and  had,  through  the  singing 
of  this  favorite  hymn  of  his,  brought  him  back  to  this  sphere 

again In  a  little  while  [I]  readily  assumed  or  impersonated 

several  other  characters. 

"  I  think  the  suggestion  made  through  the  remark  I  over- 
heard, that  it  was  my  father  controlling  me, — coupled  with  the 
prior  suggestion  conveyed  through  the  singing  of  the  hymn  . . . 
associated  . . .  with  my  father . . .  accounts  for  all  that  took  place. 
The  peculiar  manner  in  which  the  details  of  the  scene  worked 

themselves  out  I  can  fully  account  for The  peculiar  feelings 

of  loneliness ...  all  sprang  from  a  story  I  had  heard  read  aloud 

many  years  ago It  was  a  ghost  story  from  the  ghost's  point 

of  view,  and  told  of  the  return  of  a  restless  spirit  to  the  earth 
and  to  the  scenes  of  its  former  existence;  the  strangeness  and 
intense  disappointment  it  felt  at  not  being  able  to  make  itself 
known  to  the  loved  ones  of  its  past  life,  &c.,  &c. 

"  Often  of  late  years,  when  I  have  felt  that  my  children  mis- 
understood the  motives  which  prompted  certain  conduct  on  my 
part  towards  them,  my  thoughts  have  involuntarily  gone  back 
to  my  own  youth  and  training,  and  I  have  frequently  longed 
that  my  father  might  be  alive,  that  I  might  make  him  feel 
that  I  understood  and  appreciated  him  better  now  and  would 
gladly  seek  his  advioe  and  counsel  in  the  training  of  my  own 
children.  And  in  the  same  way  I  might,  if  it  were  needful, 


Ch.  LI]        Tout  Case  as  Viewed  Much  Later  853 

adequately  account  for  all  the  salient  features  of  the  other  im- 
personations." 

We  will  look  into  this  "  adequately  "  a  little,  later. 

"  Building  and  peopling  chateaux  en  Espagne  was  a  favorite 
occupation  of  mine  in  my  earlier  days,  and  this  long-practised 
faculty  is  doubtless  a  potent  factor  in  all  my  characterizations. 
...  I  hope  I  have  made  it  clear  that  before  we  can  admit  that 
phenomena  such  as  I  have  described  are  due  to  the  influence 
or  presence  of  disembodied  spirits  . . .  the  personal  equation  that 
here  manifests  itself  so  strongly  under  the  dramatizing  faculty 
which  we  all  possess  in  a  much  greater  degree  than  is  commonly 
supposed,  and  which  is  very  active  in  strongly  imaginative  tem- 
peraments such  as  mine,  must  be  eliminated.  And  when  this 
is  intelligently  and  rigorously  done,  I  venture  to  think  that  a 
Tery  large  proportion  of  cases  now  attributed  to  spirit  control 
will  be  adequately  explained  without  resorting  to  any  such 
occult  agency." 

Despite  the  comments  I  have  peppered  in,  Principal  Tout's 
opinions  are  entitled  to  high  consideration  in  explaining 
his  dramatizations  of  persons  he  knew  all  about  and  was 
deeply  interested  in.  But  how  far  do  they  account  for  the 
thousands  of  impersonations  through  the  mediums,  of  persons 
they  know  nothing  about,  with  as  much  similitude,  knowledge, 
and  emotion  as  Principal  Tout  displayed  in  impersonating  his 
father? 

If  his  mind  had  become  saturated  with  the  new  views  forced 
upon  us  during  the  score  of  years  since  he  wrote,  regarding 
the  interflow  of  souls,  in  place  of  the  old  view  that  they  are 
as  distinct  and  uninterchangeable  as  bodies  (and  bodies,  by 
the  way,  do  not  appear  as  distinct  as  they  did  before  transfers 
of  matter  and  force  were  understood  as  they  are  now),  would 
he  not  have  been  more  ready  to  conceive  of  an  interflow  of 
his  father's  spirit  and  his  own,  just  such  as  appeared  to  take 
place,  and  as  he  tried  to  reason  away?  Would  he  have  been 
as  apt  to  conclude  (Pr.  XI,  316)  : 

"  how  liable  we  are  in  these  as  in  other  matters  to  be  the 
victims  of  self-deception  [Perhaps  even  in  his  theory  of  auto- 
suggestion. H.H.]  and  how  guardedly  and  critically  we  should 

receive  all  evidence  of  this  kind 1  would  personally  refuse 

to  accept  phenomena  of  a  vastly  more  startling  nature  than 
any  that  have  come  under  my  observation  or  that  I  have  ex- 
perienced as,  in  any  sense,  evidence  of  spirit  control,  unless  the 
whole  character  and  antecedents  of  the  medium  were  thoroughly 


854  The  Making  of  a  Medium  [Bk.  Ill 

known  [As  those  of  many  have  become  since  he  wrote.  H.H.] 
and  were  such  as  to  render  an  explanation  of  the  kind  I  have 
given  wholly  inadmissible  and  out  of  place.  And  as  it  is  of 
the  very  essence  of  mediumship  ex  hypothesi  that  it  be  im- 
pressionable and  therefore  readily  open  to  suggestion,  I  do  not  see 
that  we  can  ever  hope  to  obtain  evidence  not  open  to  these  objec- 
tions and,  therefore,  evidence  that  we  can  accept  and  rely  upon." 

We  are  getting  a  great  deal  of  "  evidence  that  we  can  rely 
upon  "  on  both  sides.  It  is,  and  must  long  be,  a  question  of 
in  which  direction,  and  how  much,  the  evidence  preponderates. 
Whichever  that  direction  may  be,  it  will  be  long  before  we 
get  evidence  not  "  open  to  ...  objections." 

The  "Le  Baron"  Case 

Here  is  another  case  of  aborted  mediumship,  also  reported 
in  a  paper  by  the  sensitive  himself,  which  is  introduced  by 
James  and  commented  on  by  Myers  in  Pr.  XII,  277. 

All  the  names  of  persons  and  places,  except  Stowe,  Vermont, 
are  pseudonyms. 

In  the  summer  of  1894,  Mr.  "  Le  Baron,"  a  gentleman  to- 
wards forty  years  of  age,  given  to  the  study  of  philosophy  and 
the  use  of  a  highly  technical  diction,  went  to  a  spiritualistic 
"  camp,"  where  the  leader  was  a  lady  whom  he  calls  "  Evan- 
gel," whose  regular  control  was  her  deceased  mother.  In 
letters  to  James,  she  confirms  the  statements  of  what  took  place 
in  her  presence.  I  will  tell  the  story  in  extracts  from  Le 
Baron's  statements  and  her  letters. 

He  says  (Pr.  XII,  280) : 

"  Occasionally,  seances  were  secretly  held,  far  into  the  mid- 
night  At  one ...  we  were  seated  under  a  pine  tree.  Clair- 
voyants were  present.  '  Wheels '  of  light  and  other  phenomena 
were  said  tc  be  seen  by  them.  I  sat  listening  to  the  affirmations. 

"  Suddenly  an  entirely  new  and  strange  psycho-automatic 
force  shook  through  me  like  a  gust  of  fierce  wind  through  a 
tree.  I  willed  myself  into  a  state  of  passivity  in  order  to  observe 
the  phenomena.  I  went  into  no  trance,  however.  The  force  be- 
came intelligent  in  action 1  was  brought,  from  my  sitting 

posture,  down  on  the  flat  of  my  back.  The  force  produced  a 
motor  disturbance  of  my  head  and  jaws.  My  mouth  made 
automatic  movements;  till,  in  a  few  seconds,  I  was  distinctly 
conscious  of  another's  voice — unearthly,  awful,  loud,  and  weird 
— bursting  through-  the  woodland  from  my  own  lips,  with  the 
despairing  words :  '  Oh !  My  people ! '  Mutterings  of  semi- 


Ch.  LI]  The  Le  Baron  Case  855 

purposive  prophecy  followed.  One  of  the  clairvoyants  added 
additional  weirdness  to  the  experience  by  positively  affirming 
that  phantasms  of  ancient  Egyptian  sages  stood  over  me. 

"  I  was  so  dazed  and  '  rattled '  by  the  experience  and  the  motor 
disturbances,  that,  at  the  close  of  the  seance,  I  had  to  be  assisted 
to  my  feet,  and  was  walked  for  some  time  to  and  fro  in  the  night 
air  to  recover  my  equilibrium." 

"  Evangel "  thus  wrote  to  James  (pp.  278-9) : 

"  He  had  lapsed  into  agnosticism,  and  almost  pessimism. . . . 
He  spent  the  night  in  tears,  and  went  away  feeling  that  our 
work  was  an  ideal  one,  but  that  there  was  no  place  for  it  in  this 
busy,  bustling  nineteenth  century.  Nevertheless,  it  lured  him 
back  again,  and  one  evening  while  sitting  in  our  reception  room 
at  our  own  house,  and  talking  with  me  concerning  the  work  and 
my  mother's  life,  he  had  a  very  startling  experience.  He  was 
suddenly  psychologized  in  some  way,  and,  though  conscious, 
began  saying  words  which  he  felt  did  not  originate  in  his  own 
mind.  His  whole  manner  of  speaking  and  his  tones  changed  so 
much  that  the  large  St.  Bernard  dog,  which  had  been  a  special 
pet  of  my  mother,  rose  up  from  the  rug  and  went  over  to  him 
and  began  lapping  his  hands  all  over.  The  tone  —  was  very 
like  my  mother's,  and  the  words  said  purported  to  be  inspired 

by  her .  The  experiences  which  have  come  to  him  have  altered 

his  whole  course  of  thinking.  Where  he  was  formerly  despon- 
dent, he  is  now  optimistic,  and  at  peace  with  himself " 

Mr.  Le  Baron  says  (pp.  281-3)  : 

"  Evangel  positively  claimed  that  it  was  the  voice  of  her  dead 
mother —  .  The  old  dog  lay  down  by  my  side.  In  a  few  minutes 
the  voice  of  the  psycho-automatism  changed.  A  man's  deep  voice 
succeeded  that  of  the  dead  woman's. 

"  '  It's  father ! '  again  whispered  Evangel. 

"  Statements  of  a  semi-prophetic  character  were  again  in- 
dulged in  by  the  psycho-automatism,  and  the  words :  '  he  shall 
be  a  leader  of  the  hosts  of  the  Lord ! '  exploded  with  loud  em- 
phasis  The  effect  of  all  this  ...  on  my  emotional  nature  was 

powerful . . .  ever  and  anon,  vibrations  of  the  psycho-automatism 
with  which  I  was  en  rapport  trembled  through  my  nerves,  evok- 
ing strange  and  holy  modes  of  the  most  exquisite  consciousness. 
Those  feelings  were  the  most  wonderful  I  have  ever  enjoyed. 

"  One  night  I  slept  in  the  bed  where  the  dead  father  of  Evangel 
slept  during  the  last  years  of  his  life.  The  next  morning  I 
awoke  lame.  I  limped  about  painfully  for  hours.  The  father 
of  Evangel  was  a  lame  man*  As  a  sensitive  somnambule  I 
had  taken  on  his  lame  condition. 

*In  answer  to  inquiries,  Mr.  Le  Baron  writes:  "I  did  not  know 
beforehand  that  her  father  was  lame.  I  was  informed  so,  when  seen 
limping."— ED. 


856  The  Making  of  a  Medium  [Bk.  Ill 

" I  would  lie  in  bed  on  my  back,  peering  wistfully  into 

the  night  darkness  at  the  shadowy  and  vapory  outlines  of  what 
I  supposed  to  be  '  invisible  brethren.'  I  could  hear  distinct  rapa 
on  the  head-board.  Small  globules  of  golden  light  would,  after 
traveling  about  the  room  in  the  blackness,  come  and  melt  away 
over  my  eyes.  In  the  dense  darkness,  a  group  of  arithmetical 
figures  once  shone  from  near  the  ceiling  of  the  room. 

"  The  first  message  of  importance  given  to  me  on  leaving 
Shelter  Island  was  ...  to  be  sent  to  Evangel  as  purporting  to 
be ...  from  her  mother.  In  the  second  address,  the  psycho- 
spontaneity  or  automatism,  assuming  to  be  the  'true  mother* 
of  my  '  soul,'  said,  among  other  things :  '  I  am  going  to  guide 

you  into  the  way  of  truth You  must  be  at  the  door  of  the 

church  near  the  old  house  in  the  town  of  Stowe, . . .  Vermont,  by 
the  time  the  sun  rises  on  next  Tuesday.  You  will  then  see  the 
reason  why  I  told  you  to  go.' ...  I  did  not  know  that  such  a 
village  as  Stowe  existed.  But  Evangel  did,  as  I  subsequently 
learned. . . .  The . . .  morning  of  the  10th  about  5  o'clock  I  was 
in  the  porch  of  the  church.  The  building  was  old,  weather- 
beaten,  and  the  flooring  of  the  porch  in  a  decayed  condition. 
The  porch  faced  the  east,  and  the  edifice  was  on  a  hill  overlook- 
ing the  village. . . .  The  sky  was  black  with  the  remnants  of  the 
rain  clouds.  Slowly  golden  streaks  of  dawn  appeared.  The 
black  clouds  rolled  away.  The  sun  arose.  I  noticed  a  grave- 
yard across  a  field.  The  psycho-automatism  indicated  an  ejec- 
tion of  verbiage.  The  verbiage  assumed  a  deific  style,  and  was 
as  follows: — 

" '  I  shall  be  glorified  in  the  work  of  the  people,  for  thou  hast 
proved  thyself  to  be  the  man  whose  voice  is  the  voice  of  Him 
who  sent  thee.  Thou  has  [sic,  probably  misprint.  H.H.]  obeyed 
the  command  of  the  Holy  One,  and  the  valleys  shall  rejoice  in 
the  hope  and  the  joy  of  the  Lord.  I  shall  be  in  thy  heart,  and 
thou  shalt  answer  to  my  voice.' " 

Apparently  not  much  pork  for  Mr.  Le  Baron's  shilling.  I 
have  been  familiar  with  Stowe  from  a  time  much  earlier  than 
his  visit,  and  there  is  not  any  such  church  as  he  describes. 
This  is  confirmed  by  an  old  resident.  There  must  be  a  fault 
in  memory  or  topography. 

He  says  of  a  couple  of  nights  later  (p.  284) : 

"  I  retired  to  my  room  at  the  inn  somewhat  early,  to  be  alone 
with  the  '  invisible  brotherhood.'. . .  Again  the  psycho-automat- 
ism assumed  the  grave  deific  style  known  to  the  occidental 
English-speaking  world 

" '  I  will  tell  thee  of  the  days  of  thy  sojourning  in  the  land 
of  the  people  of  the  Jumba,  where  the  land  is  the  joy  and  the 


Ch.  U]  Le  Baron's   Unknown  Tongues  857 

light  is  the  joy  of  the  people.  The  land  is  the  country  of  the 
ancient  Egyptians,  and  thy  glory  and  thy  power  was  [Question- 
able grammar  again,  despite  Professor  Lounsbury  and  Shake- 
spere,  and  hardly  a  possible  misprint.  H.H.]  the  pride  of  the 
people.  Thy  name  was  Rameses,  and  thy  glory  was  the  end  of 
the  triumph  of  the  people.  Thou  didst  throw  down  the  people, 
for  their  joy  was  the  truth  of  the  truth.  Thou  didst  exalt  thyself 
to  the  end,  and  the  hope  of  the  truth  was  in  thy  keeping,  and 
thy  victory  was  the  fall  of  the  truth.  Thy  way  was  not  the  way  of 
the  Lord,  and  the  Lord  hath  sent  thee  through  the  fire ' " 

Granting  the  composition  to  be  a  chain  of  lies  from  be- 
ginning to  end,  it  certainly  takes  some  degree  of  intelligence 
to  be  able  to  lie  so  artistically. 

He  was  directed  to  go  to  many  more  places,  and  was  suffi- 
ciently satisfied  with  what  he  had  already  obtained,  to  obey. 
At  St  Louis  he  found  a  man  "  ascetic  in  appearance,  pale, 
with  large  dreamy  eyes,"  who  was  also  under  the  control  of 
Barneses  the  Great,  who  delivered  about  as  edifying  and  mean- 
ingless a  message  as  those  already  quoted,  though  less  stilted. 
This  sort  of  thing  kept  on  until  soon  came  "  speaking  with 
tongues  "  which  has  played  such  a  part  in  all  mystical  litera- 
ture. (Podmore  gives  a  good  history  of  it  in  Modern  Spirit- 
ualism.) Strange  words  came  both  by  voice  and  writing,  and 
were  followed,  when  asked  for,  by  alleged  translations.  The 
longer  ones  ran  to  pages.  Here  is  a  brief  specimen : 

"  Unknown  Tongue. — Etce  ce  Tera.  Lute  te  turo  scente. 
Inke  runo  tere.  Scete  inte  telee  turo.  Oru  imbe  impe  iste. 
Simpe,  Simpe,  Simpe. 

"Translation. — Love  now  has  been  sent!  The  light  of  the 
earth!  The  joy  of  the  day!  The  light  of  the  world!  " 

The  longer  "  messages  "  run  to  thirty  or  forty  lines,  many 
about  light  and  love,  sometimes  approaching  eroticism,  and 
always  hifalutin,  or,  as  Mr.  Le  Baron  says,  "  deific,"  whatever 
that  may  mean.  Sometimes  both  original  and  translation 
were  in  verse,  in  pretty  fair  meter. 

He  says  that  he  traced  a  large  portion  of  the  words  "  in  a 
vocabulary  of  primitive  Dravidian  or  British  Indian,  non- 
Aryan  languages,"  and  gives  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  of 
them  alphabetically  from  "  ara  "  to  "  furo." 


858  The  Making  of  a  Medium  [Bk.  Ill 

James  says  (pp.  278-9) : 

"  I  corresponded  with  various  philologists  in  his  behalf,  send- 
ing them  specimens,  phonetically  written  out,  of  his  discourse. 
But  no  light  came,  and  finally  he  grew  convinced,  by  the  mere 
progress  of  the  phenomenon,  that  it  was  less  important  than  it 
pretended  to  be." 

The  account  of  Principal  Tout  above  given  suggests  that 
he  was  a  medium  in  the  making,  though  the  making  did  not 
go  far;  but  the  account  of  Mr.  Le  Baron  carries  the  process 
to  a  point  yielding  some  suggestions.  He  began  in  the  grove 
with  some  grandiloquent  "  personage,"  and  as  his  own  writing 
in  the  Pr.  S.  P.  K.  contains  some  passages  of  rather  tall  talk, 
the  grandiloquent  start  was  very  natural  on  the  assumption 
that  of  all  the  stuff  floating  around  the  psychic  universe,  such 
portions  find  their  way  into  a  sensitive  or  a  dreamer  as  happen 
to  fit  his  make-up.  Into  everybody's  make-up  enters  some 
knowledge  of  eminent  persons,  and  accordingly  we  find  vir- 
tually all  the  mediums  starting  with  Plato,  Bacon,  Sweden- 
borg,  and  their  like,  Mr.  Le  Baron  with  no  less  a  person  than 
Eameses;  and  virtually  all  Americans  include  Franklin.  At 
first  it  seems  a  little  strange  that  he  appears  more  frequently 
than  Washington,  but  he  was  notoriously  a  "  philosopher,"  and 
therefore,  whether  a  mere  memory  or  an  actual  control,  more 
congenial  with  the  mediumistic  temperament  than  Washing- 
ton was.  In  the  same  direction,  the  imagination  of  every 
American,  especially  in  childhood  when  such  impressions  are 
deep,  has  been  much  dominated  by  the  Indians,  and  hence 
virtually  every  medium's  entourage  includes  some  sort  of 
an  Indian — a  "  big  Injun  "  or  an  "  Indian  maiden  " — Mrs. 
Piper's  "  Chlorine  "  or  Mrs.  Richmond's  "  Ouina."  These 
ladies,  however,  started  their  mediumship  young  and  near 
their  juvenile  impression  of  Indians,  but  Mr.  Le  Baron  had 
outgrown  all  that,  and  got  as  far  as  the  Egyptians,  so  it 
needed  a  Eameses  to  serve  his  turn. 

But  being  once  started  by  the  contagion  of  the  group  of 
psychics  in  the  grove,  the  next  time  Mr.  Le  Baron  had  an 
attack,  it  was  in  the  presence  of  a  specially  sympathetic  sitter 
— "  Evangel,"  and  most  naturally  this  time,  it  was  an  inflow 
of  memories  from  her  or  from  the  cosmic  ocean,  that  made  up 
a  representation  of  her  mother;  or  it  may  have  been  an  inflow 


Ch.  LI]  The  William  Baker  Case  859 

of  more  than  memories — of  them  and  of  everything  else  essen- 
tial to  her  mother — of  enough  to  be  recognized  even  by  the 
mother's  old  dog.  In  all  of  which,  can  it  be  barely  possible 
that  the  old  dog  showed  a  better  scent  than  some  learned 
psychical  researchers  seeking  the  "  evidential "  ? 

Myers's  comments  on  the  Le  Baron  case  (Pr.  XII,  295f.) 
are  well  worth  reading,  but  there  is  no  room  for  them  here. 

Another  case  of  aborted  mediumship — that  of  "  William 
Baker,"  is  given  by  Professor  Newbold  in  his  Pr.  S.  P.  R. 
paper  from  which  I  have  made  Chapter  XXXV.  Mr.  Baker 
was  a  frequent  sitter,  and  early  in  his  experience  had,  when 
alone,  the  spasms  in  the  arms  that  generally  precede  hetero- 
matic  writing.  He  got  as  far  as  some  apparently  veridical  writ- 
ing, and  some  very  much  the  reverse :  for  G.  P.,  who  was  very 
anxious  to  "  develop  "  him,  frequently  told  him  that  he,  G.  P., 
had  written  things  through  B.  that  B.  hadn't  written  at  all; 
and  B.  found  that  the  business  was  leading  him  into  St. 
Vitus's  dance  and  nightmares  ( ?)  when  he  thought  that  G.  P. 
and  Phinuit  were  trying  to  "  possess  "  him,  and  he  abandoned 
the  whole  business.  Possibly  if  his  sensitiveness  had  been 
greater,  we  would  have  had  another  good  medium,  and  his 
somewhat  precarious  health  might  have  improved  under  the 
experience,  as  did  that  of  Colville,  Mrs.  Piper,  and  others. 

Despite  the  hard  time  he  had  with  G.  P.  and  Phinuit,  he 
was  on  the  best  of  terms  with  them,  and  some  extracts  of  their 
talk  that  Professor  Newbold  withheld  from  publication  seem 
to  me  well  worth  giving.  For  good  reasons  I  substitute  two 
or  three  words  of  address  for  those  actually  used. 

June  25,  1894.     Baker  sitting. 

"  (B. :  May  I  ask  some  questions  ?)  G.  P. :  '  Ask  me  anything 
you  wish  and  then  I'll  repeat  word  for  word  their  messages  as 
given  to  me... fire  away  H.  and  you  also  [to  B.]  '  (B. :  Mr. 
Pelham  I  wish  to  ask  you  about  the  writing  which  my  hand  has 
done.)  '  did  I  not . . .  what  more  do  you  want  I  went  there  to  see 
you  and  took  Phinuit  along  with  me  and  while  we  were  there  . . . 
[with  energy  to  some  spirit]  will  you  kindly  keep  quiet  while  I 
speak  to  these  gentlemen  myself  . . .  thanks . . .  yes  my  friend  I 
tried  to  say  I  would  assist  you  but  as  yet  your  own  mind  inter- 
feres and  it  was  almost  impossible  to  get  our  thoughts  expressed 
by  your  hand  independently  of  your  own.'  (B. :  Mr.  Pelham,  let 
me  tell  you  what  my  hand  has  been  about.)  '  certainly  yes ' 


860  The  Making  of  a  Medium  [Bk.  Ill 

(B. :  Some  weeks  ago  I  found  it  would  write ;  at  first  it  wrote 
only  scrawls;  then  it  became  quite  legible.  But  what  it  wrote 
was  not  true  and  I  noticed  I  was  aware  myself  of  the  thoughts 
before  they  were  written,  so  I  concluded  they  were  not  the  utter- 
ances of  spirits  but  only  my  own  ideas  objectified.)  '  only,  yes 
sir  quite,  but  I  had  nothing  to  do  with  this'  (B. :  I  did  not 
think  you  had,  Mr.  Pelham,  but  wished  to  see  whether  you  could 
throw  light  on  it  for  me.  Dr.  Phinuit  has  told  me  he  tried  to 
use  my  hand  but  only  made  scrawls.  Do  you  think  you  could 
find  out  whether  anyone  else  did?)  'Yes  I  know  exactly  what 
you  wish  and  will  endeavor  to  ascertain  the  true  facts  in  this 
case  for  you  my  friend . . .  thanks  . . .  fire  away '  (B. :  Do  you 
think  you  could  get  your  thoughts  written  by  my  hand  ?)  '  Yes  ' 
(B. :  Would  you  be  willing  to  see  what  can  be  done  with  it?) 
'  will  try  when  I  think  it  advisable  certainly '  (B. :  How  shall  I 
call  you  when  I  wish  to  try?)  . . . '  oh  how  wretched  this  scrib- 
bling is ...  Keep  perfectly  calm  and  sit  in  as  quiet  a  place  as 
convenient  call  for  yours  truly'  (B. :  Mentally,  you  mean?) 
'  only  [, — ]  and  if  I  think  I  can  read  your  thoughts  I  will  try 
my  level  best '  (B. :  Of  late  as  I  told  you  I  not  only  felt  my 
hand  moved  without  my  willing  it,  but  I  felt  ideas  stream 
through  my  mind  independently  as  well,  and  this  alarmed  me 
greatly.)  '  Yes,  you  need  never  be  troubled  by  this  experience 
as  I  assure  you  it  will  never  be  harmful  in  any  way ...  no  matter, 
leave  it  to  me '  (B. :  I  shall  be  glad  to  have  you  use  my  hand  if 
you  can,  for  I  know  you  understand  the  art.  But  can  I  feel 
sure  that  others  will  not  also  try  ?)  '  No,  not  absolutely  yet  I 
will  strain  every  nerve  (in  my  spiritual  protoplasm  [I  believe  I 
have  asked  elsewhere  whether  it  is  easier  to  conclude  that  a 
dramatizing  Mrs.  Piper  keeps  this  word,  among  all  the  char- 
acters she  creates,  for  G.  P.  alone ;  or  that  a  postcarnate  G.  P.  is 
using  his  individual  vocabulary.  H.H.]  so  to  speak)  to  help  keep 
wanderer's  thoughts  out  Trust  to  me  and  I  will  keep  things 
as ...  Henry . . .  she  came  very  near  it ...  yes  I ...  straight  as 
possible  . . .'  (B. :  I  wish  to  study  these  matters  but  wish  also  to 
be  cautious  about  it.)  '  I  understand  you  sir.' " 

I  don't  remember  G.  P.  "  sir  "-ing  anywhere  else:  it  sug- 
gests the  Scott  control  of  the  same  period. 

June  19,  1895.    Baker  sitting. 

"  (When  you  tried  to  put  me  to  sleep,  Doctor,  did  you  feel 
how  frightened  I  was,  and  how  I  fought  against  you  ?)  '  I  have 
no  real  solid  substance,  Baker,  to  feel,  but  I  knew  that  your  soul 
was  rebellious.' " 

June  22,  1895.    Baker  sitting. 

"Phinuit:  'When  she  goes  out  I  see  her  spirit  and  I  go  in 
on  a  string  while  she  goes  out.  Sometimes  she  sees  me  as  we 
pass  and  she  tries  to  go  back  and  fight  with  me,  unwilling  to 


Ch.  LI]       'Aborted  Cases  and  Developed  Cases  861 

move  out '  (Well,  Dr.,  so  it  is  with  me.  I'm  really  very  anxious 
to  have  you  turn  me  out,  but  when  you  begin  to  do  it  the  feeling 
is  so  horrible  that  I  can't  keep  willing)  '  Oh  yes,  Baker,  my  boy, 
I  understand.  It's  all  very  well  to  be  willing  but  it's  a  very 
different  thing  when  I  once  get  hold  of  your  brain.  You  will 
always  be  rebellious  then.' " 

July  1,  1895.  Present:  B.  H. 

"  [Phinuit  speaks,  ordinary  greeting,  then  asks  after  '  Baker.'] 
'  I'm  not  going  to  take  his  body  until  he's  in  a  fit  condition  plenty 
of  light.  When  I  do  it  I  want  to  do  it  with  what  George  calls 
propriety  [Phinuit  stumbles  over  this  word].  I  want  to  do  it 
with  intelligence,  so  that  there  will  be  beneficial  results,  and  I 
won't  disturb  him.' " 

Anti-spiritists  of  course  construe  these  aborted  cases  of 
mediumship  to  be  merely  unconscious  expressions  of  the  con- 
tents of  the  manifestoes  own  mind,  including  of  course  some 
telepathic  and  even  teloteropathic  impressions;  and  from  this 
conviction  the  skeptic  will  deduce  the  farther  one  that  Mrs. 
Holland  and  Mrs.  Piper  give  but  more  expanded  illustrations 
of  the  same  thing. 

As  to  "  the  same  thing,"  I  find  myself  in  agreement,  but 
not  as  to  what  the  thing  is.  The  gradation  from  the  unde- 
veloped cases  to  the  developed  ones  seems  to  have  no  break, 
and  seems  to  start  in  a  telepathic  sensitiveness  which  probably 
all  minds  have  in  some  degree.  Where  the  degree  is  small,  the 
amount  and  accuracy  of  the  communication  attained  is  slight, 
and  to  develop  it  requires  more  persistence  than  where  the  sen- 
sitiveness is  great,  and  even  may  be  attended  with  injury  to 
health,  as  in  Baker's  case.  On  the  other  hand,  where  the  sensi- 
tiveness is  great,  there  may  at  the  start  be  all  sorts  of  muddles 
of  the  sensitive's  own  notions  with  the  telepathic  inflow,  but 
through  patient  development  the  latter  gains  in  strength  and 
clearness.  Mrs.  Piper  begins  with  "  Chlorine,"  evidently  her 
own  manufacture,  and  Commodore  Vanderbilt,  whom  she  had 
in  mind  as  a  very  conspicuous  figure  at  the  time ;  but  later  she 
gets  what  looks  mightily  like  inflow  from  genuine  personali- 
ties. William  Baker  and  Mrs.  Verrall  begin  writing  nonsense, 
Baker  does  not  make  a  success,  and  abandons  it ;  Mrs.  Verrall, 
who  seems  better  fitted  for  it,  persists  and  gets  what  look  like 
genuine  inflows.  Mrs.  Holland  gets  coherent  and  interesting, 
even  poetical,  things  from  the  start.  From  this  point  of  view 


862  The  Making  of  a  Medium  [Bk.  Ill 

the  products  of  mediumship,  whatever  else  they  may  be,  seem 
as  natural  as  poetry  or  music — some  people  cannot  manifest 
them  at  all;  some  manifest  them  badly;  a  few,  well.  These 
facts  seem  to  be  in  the  direction,  though  not  of  themselves 
very  far  in  the  direction,  of  the  manifestations  being  what, 
until  dissected,  and  sometimes  after  dissection,  they  seem  to  be. 
Regarding  these  cases,  one  thing  at  least  seems  pretty  cer- 
tain— that  if  Principal  Tout  and  Mr.  Baker  had  not  thrown 
up  the  whole  thing,  and  if  Mr.  Le  Baron  had  not  virtually 
confined  himself  to  physical  solitude  in  the  psychical  society 
of  his  Egyptians;  but  if  on  the  contrary,  all  three  had  had 
frequent  seances  with  sympathetic  sitters,  they  would  prob- 
ably have  been  led  to  draw  from  the  cosmic  soul  the  individu- 
alities— individual  simulacra  at  least — of  the  sitters'  departed 
friends;  and  we  would  have  had  three  more  good  mediums, 
with  geometrical  increase  in  our  chances  of  finding  out  what 
their  queer  performances  mean,  and  of  getting  at  whatever 
good  may  be  in  them. 

The  Medium's  Physical  Experience 

In  addition  to  the  apparently  unescapable  a  priori  proba- 
bility of  a  physical  change  in  the  medium's  brain,  there  seems 
strong  direct  evidence  of  one  in  the  "  snap  "  that  Mrs.  Piper 
often  says  she  feels  in  the  "  waking  stage."  Compare  with 
this  the  report  like  a  pistol  that  brought  to  Ansel  Bourne 
and  Brewin.  A  molecular  change  could  probably  be  thus 
reported.  When  a  thing  gets  near  the  sensorium,  it  doesn't 
require  much  to  make  a  perceptible  noise.  For  some  nights, 
in  certain  positions  of  my  head  on  the  pillow,  I  thought  I 
heard  trains  of  cars.  In  daytime  I  soon  recognized  the  sound 
as  internal,  and  the  aurist  found  it  caused  by  a  little  hair 
that  had  found  its  way  to  the  tympanum. 

That  guess  regarding  Mrs.  Piper  seems  part  of  the  proba- 
bility that  the  nature  of  the  inflow  is  determined  by  the  nature 
of  the  receptacle.  Now  is  it  fantastic  to  suspect  that  mediums 
who  go  into  voluntary  trance  have  some  control  over  parts 
of  their  nervous  systems  which,  like  voluntary  control  of 
movements  of  the  outer  ear,  is  not  possessed  by  people  in 
general?  But  if  we  suppose  that  Mrs.  Piper,  for  instance, 
voluntarily  makes  some  change  in  her  nervous  system,  which 


Ch.  LI]         Physical  Experiences  of  Mediums  863 

permits  a  cosmic  inflow  that  we  call,  or  that  calls  itself, 
Phinuit,  what  are  we  to  suppose  happens  when,  apparently, 
Phinuit  goes  out  and  a  different  cosmic  inflow,  or  personality, 
enters  ?  Has  she  made  hundreds  of  changes,  making  her  ner- 
vous system  in  each  case  like  that  which  would  naturally  hold 
the  other  personality  ?  Under  the  old-fashioned  theory  of  pos- 
session it  would  seem  rational  to  guess  that  the  medium's 
brain  is  somehow  elastic  and  "  open  to  all  comers,"  and  that 
each  personality  flows  in  and  forces  the  nervous  system  to  fit 
it,  as  an  elastic  glove  is  made  to  fit  various  hands. 

But  though  this  guess  relates  to  Possession,  it  would  hold 
good  if  she  put  herself  into  condition,  not  to  receive  the  actual 
inflow  or  spirit,  but  only  a  telepathic  influence.  (This  is  a 
paradoxical  muddle,  like  everything  else  on  the  borderland 
of  our  faculties,  but  through  such  muddles  we  have  to  feel 
our  way  in  the  borderland.)  I  incline  to  the  guess  of  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge  and  others,  that  the  apparent  "  Possession  "  is 
only  telepathic,  as  in  veridical  dreams,  but  it  is  all  very  vague 
yet,  and  our  notions  of  telepathy  hardly  cover  the  medium's 
apparent  identity  with  the  control.  Yet  I  recall  distinctly  one 
frequent  dream — blending  of  myself  with  what  I  take  to  be 
objective  to  myself,  in  the  reading  of  printed  matter  which 
seems  to  develop  letter  by  letter  before  me,  and  at  the  same 
time  to  proceed  from  me.  I  have  vague  recollections,  too,  of 
thinking,  in  dreams,  that  I  was  somebody  else  and  still 
myself. 

That  apparently  unescapable  a  priori  probability  of  a  phys- 
ical change  in  the  medium's  brain,  with  all  I've  built  upon  it, 
is,  by  the  way,  in  flat  contradiction  to  the  efforts  I  made  in 
Chapter  III  and  elsewhere,  and  shall  make  more  of  before 
I  get  through,  to  show  the  possibility  of  mental  processes 
that  transcend  those  involved  in  brain  action.  This  is  an 
indication,  perhaps  misleading,  that  we  are  getting  into  some 
pretty  high  philosophy,  especially  of  the  Emersonian  kind. 
But  amid  these  misty  heights  the  best  we  can  do  is  either  to 
get  back  to  familiar  earth  or  say :  from  this  point  things  look 
to  me  so  and  so,  when  from  the  next  point  we  may  have  to 
say  just  the  opposite.  The  contradictions  have  got  to  be 
faced  until  we  get  knowledge  enough  to  resolve  them. 


CHAPTER  LII 
FINAL  GUESSES  REGARDING  POSSESSION 

PEOPLE  generally  find  what  they  seek  in  these  regions. 
Myers  confesses  that  he  started  in  search  of  proof  of  survival 
of  bodily  death,  and  he  found  it.  Drs.  Hall  and  Tanner 
started  to  find  humbug,  and  of  course  found  nothing  but 
humbug,  possibly  eked  out  by  a  secondary  personality;  and 
scientists  generally,  with  their  distrust  of  new  things,  find 
only  what  Drs.  Hall  and  Tanner  found.  But  there  are  sci- 
entists and  scientists,  in  all  trades  there  are  some  men 
superior  to  the  bias  of  their  trades,  and  Joseph  Henry,  Sir 
William  Crookes,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  Sir  William  Barrett, 
Alfred  Eussel  Wallace,  and  William  James  all  found  enough 
that  was  genuine  to  justify  unlimited  study,  and  to  bring 
some  of  them  to  spiritistic  conclusions,  and  the  rest  to  sus- 
pended judgment.  Hodgson  started  to  find  the  truth,  gave 
many  times  the  attention  to  the  search  that  all  the  skeptics 
have,  found  more  humbug  than  all  of  them  together,  and  yet 
found  enough  matter  that  he  considered  genuine  to  make  him 
a  devoted  spiritist. 

Yet  candor  requires  me  to  add  that  since  the  foregoing 
was  written,  a  common  friend  has  told  me  that  Hodgson 
always  wanted  to  find  evidence  of  survival.  Does  or  does 
not  that  show  his  mind  to  have  been  in  a  healthier  state  than 
the  minds  of  those  who,  to  overthrow  the  hope  of  survival, 
get  up  hypotheses  more  strained  than  the  hypothesis  of  sur- 
vival itself?  If  Hodgson  did  want  to  find  evidence  for  spirit- 
ism, does  his  restraint  in  his  first  Piper  report  (see  Chapter 
XXIX)  and  his  Thompson  report  alluded  to  in  Chapter 
XXXVIII  add  weight  to  his  report  in  Chapter  XXXIV, 
where  he  thinks  he  has  found  it  ? 

Now  I  am  ready  to  venture  my  final  guesses  regarding 
"  Possession."  Be  as  patient  as  you  can  while  I  shape  them 

864 


Ch.  LII]          Are  Sensitives  Somnambulists?  865 

by  repeating  and  combining  fragments  with  which  you  are 
already  familiar. 

The  contents  of  the  dream  state  vary  all  the  way  from  those 
of  ordinary  dreams  up  to  Foster's  waking  visions,  and  on  to 
Mrs.  Thompson's  or  Mrs.  Piper's  trances. 

Ellis  and  others  propose,  wisely  I  think,  to  let  the  term 
"  somnambulic  "  cover  not  only  sleep  walking  but  all  other 
motor  action  in  the  dream  state.  As  so  understood,  then, 
somnambulism  varies  all  the  way  from  Mrs.  VerralPs  waking 
heteromatic  writing,  through  Mrs.  Holland's  heteromatic  writ- 
ing, waking  and  in  trance,  up  to  Mrs.  Piper's  heteromatic 
writing  only  in  trance,  and  Mrs.  Piper's  and  Mrs.  Thompson's 
talking  in  trance. 

As  to  the  sensitives,  then : 

I.  They  are  somnambulists  who  talk  out  and  write  out 
what  they  see  and  hear  in  their  dreams.     Nothing  unusual 
about  that! 

II.  What  they  see,  and  consequently  what  they  say,  is  a 
good  deal  of  a  jumble.     Nothing  unusual  about  that ;  nearly 
all  dreams  are  jumbles. 

III.  They  see  and  hear  persons  they  never  saw  before. 
Nothing  unusual  about  that !     So  probably  do  most  of  us. 

IV.  Sometimes  they  identify  themselves  more  or  less  with 
these  personalities.     Mrs.  Piper  nearly  always  does.     Nothing 
exceedingly  unusual  about  that !     I  sometimes  confuse  myself 
with  others  in  my  dreams,  and  many  dreamers  report  the 
same. 

V.  Those  others  say  many  things,  and  very  often  correct 
things,  unknown  to  the  sensitives,  to  anybody  present,  or 
perhaps  to  anybody   else  that  can  be  found.    Rather  un- 
usual among  ordinary  dreamers,  but  by  no  means  unprece- 
dented ! 

But  from  here  on  the  experiences  of  the  sensitives  are  of 
a  more  and  more  unusual  kind  until  they  reach  the  point 
where  they  have  set  the  world  wondering.  They  may  be 
farther  analyzed  as: 

VI.  Some  of  the  people  Mrs.  Piper  (I  speak  of  her  as  the 
representative  of  a  class)  never  saw  before,  and  of  whom  she 
never  saw  portraits,  she  identifies  from  photographs.     Very 
few  people  have  done  that:  perhaps  very  few  have  had  the 


866  Final  Guesses  Regarding  Possession      [Bk.  Ill 

chance.    There  have  been  many  times  when  I  am  sure  I 
could. 

VII.  Her  personalities  and  those  of  many  sensitives  are 
nearly  always  "  dead  "  friends,  not  of  the  sensitives,  but  of 
the  sitters,  and  abound  in  indications  of  genuineness  in  scope 
and  accuracy  of  memory,  in  distinctness  of  individual  recollec- 
tions and  characteristics,  and  in  all  the  dramatic  indications 
that  go  to  demonstrate  personalities. 

VIII.  She  sees  and  hears  these  persons  again  and  again, 
and  keeps  them  distinct  in  feature  and  character. 

Now  I  have  tried,  and  I  don't  think  I  have  altogether  failed, 
to  analyze  these  phenomena  into  categories  that  correspond 
with  admitted  phenomena  in  kind,  though  they  differ  in 
degree  of  frequency  and  degree  of  veridicity. 

The  crux  comes  with  the  veridicity.  How  to  account  for 
it?  Grant  me  another  repetition. 

I.  Fraud.     The  talk  of  it  is  out  of  date  and  silly. 

II.  Subdivision     of     personality — multiple     personalities. 
What  these  have  to  do  with  it  I  cannot  see.    If  Sally  Beau- 
champ's  four  personalities,  or  Dr.  Wilson's  patient's  eleven, 
were  multiplied  into  a  thousand,  there  is  no  reason  to  believe 
that  any  of  them  would  be  any  nearer  to  the  veridicity  of 
each  of  Mrs.  Piper's  thousand  than  any  secondary  of  Sally 
was;  and  I  have  not  found  any  other  case  of  unquestionable 
multiple  personality  to  which  the  same  remark  would  not 
apply.     Multiple  personalities,  except  as  the  term  is  twisted 
over  to  tfie  sensitives,  appear  only  in  sick  or  injured  people. 
Nearly  all  the  sensitives  that  amount  to  anything  are  unusu- 
ally sound  and  whole.    Mrs.  Piper  shows  more  personalities 
and  shows  them  better  when  she  is  well  than  when  she  is  ill. 

III.  The  subliminal  self  will  cover  the  phenomena.     Yes, 
if  the  hypothesis  of  the  secondary  self  will,  and  if  the  two 
terms  are  made  virtually  synonymous,  and  if  a  house  fre- 
quently arrayed  against  itself  will  stand,  and  if  a  mere  name 
accounts  for  anything;  or  if  you  make  the  subliminal  self 
identical  with  the  cosmic  soul. 

IV.  Telepathy  from  incarnate  personalities.     That  guess 
is  disposed  of,  for  me  at  least,  by  the  considerations  I  have 
scattered  through  the  reports.     The  phenomena  not  only  con- 
tain too  much,  but  they  also  omit  too  much;  of  things  more 


Ch.  LII]        Is  the  Somnambulism  Hypnotic?  867 

important  than  those  given,  and  which,  on  the  telepathic 
hypothesis,  would  have  been  more  apt  to  be  given. 

Perhaps  more  important  still,  the  phenomena  contain  too 
much  of  initiative  in  the  shape  of  adaptation,  question,  rep- 
artee, and  dramatic  quality  generally. 

Telepathy  as  ordinarily  understood  is  as  different  from  im- 
personation as  heat  from  flame,  or  motion  from  pressure :  of 
course  there  must  be  an  idea  to  enact,  but  the  idea  which  is 
acted  upon,  and  the  acting,  differ  as  widely  as  experience  and 
conduct. 

V.  Hypnotism  from  the  sitter  would  account  for  some 
apparent  initiative  and  some  acting.    But  the  sitter  is  as  much 
surprised  at  the  manifestations  as  the  reader. 

VI.  Hypnotism  from  somebody  else  present:  Hodgson  a 
Svengali,  but  a  greater  genius  than  Svengali,  and  Mrs.  Piper 
a  Trilby.     But  how  was  it  after  Hodgson's  death?     If  he 
kept  up  the  role  then,  the  spiritistic  hypothesis  is  granted. 
If  he  did  not,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  and  Mr.  Dorr  and  numerous 
other  gentlemen  of  the  highest  reputation  succeeded  him  as 
Svengalis.     These  suggestions  are  hardly  worth  writing  even 
as  jokes ;  but  they  are  better  worth  it  than  half  the  hypotheses 
that  have  been  written. 

VII.  Hypnotism  from  absent  incarnate  minds.     More  ridic- 
ulous if  possible  than  V  and  VI. 

VIII.  Hypnotism  or  possession  by  discarnate  personalities. 
Now  what  do  we  mean  by  discarnate  personalities?    In 

most  minds,  the  first  answer  will  probably  bear  a  pretty  close 
resemblance  to  Fra  Angelico's  angels,  and  very  nice  angels 
they  are!  But  to  some  of  the  more  prosy  minds  that  have 
thought  on  the  subject  in  the  light  of  the  best  and  fullest 
information  or  misinformation,  probably  the  answer  will  be 
more  like  this:  A  personality,  in  the  last  analysis,  is  a  man- 
ifestation of  the  Cosmic  Soul.  From  that  the  raw  material 
is  supplied  with  the  star  dust,  and  later,  through  our  senses, 
from  the  earliest  reactions  of  our  protozoic  ancestors  up  to 
our  dreams,  and  the  material  is  worked  up  into  each  per- 
sonality through  reactions  with  the  environment.  Thus  it 
becomes  an  aggregate  of  capacities  to  impress  another  per- 
sonality with  certain  sensations,  ideas,  emotions.  You  and  I 
know  our  best  friends  as  such  aggregates,  and  nothing  more. 


868  Fined  Guesses  Regarding  Possession       [Bk.  Ill 

Now  apparently  among  the  accomplishments  of  a  person- 
ality, does  not  necessarily  inhere  that  of  depressing  a  scale 
x  pounds,  but  when  that  capacity  is  entirely  absent,  in  the 
dream  state,  apparently  the  personality  can  impress  another 
personality  in  every  other  way,  even  to  all  the  reciprocities 
of  sex.  But  for  some  reasons  not  yet  understood,  these  im- 
pressions are  not  as  congruous,  persistent,  recurrent,  or  reg- 
ulable in  the  dream  life  as  in  the  waking  life.  But  that  they 
are  not  in  time  to  be  evolved  so  that  they  will  be,  would  be  a 
contradiction  to  at  least  some  of  the  implications  of  evolution ; 
and  that  they  are  to  be,  is  suggested  by  the  experience  of  the 
sensitives. 

All  personalities  have,  presumably,  more  or  less  power  of 
impressing  themselves,  telepathically — hypnotically,  on  other 
personalities,  and,  of  course,  of  receiving  such  impressions. 
Now  if  we  are  to  believe  the  allegations,  and  the  general 
evidence,  such  as  it  is,  the  discarnate — as  illustrated  by 
Phinuit,  Rector,  G.  P.,  Gurney,  Myers,  and  Hodgson,  appar- 
ently exercise  that  telepathic  capacity  between  themselves  with 
little  or  no  impediment,  though  they  exercise  it  with  varying 
difficulty  between  themselves  and  us. 

No  one  of  the  first  seven  hypotheses  covers  the  case.  The 
eighth  gives  some  sign  not  only  of  covering  the  case,  but  of 
covering  the  other  seven :  it  excludes  any  need  of  fraud,  and 
includes  an  unlimited  telepathy,  unlimited  (secondary?) 
personalities,  the  undying  memories  of  the  subliminal  self, 
and  all  the  hypnotic  suggestions ;  and  this  complex  guess  seems 
to  me  the  one  in  whose  direction  the  truth  is  most  apt,  on 
future  investigation,  to  be  found. 

As  to  believing  it,  the  word  belief  has  a  good  many  mean- 
ings, and  the  mental  attitude  it  stands  for,  a  good  many  de- 
grees. It  is  perhaps  safest  to  apply  it  only  to  convictions 
that  are  confirmed  by  experiment;  but  on  the  other  hand, 
the  soul  that  limits  itself  to  convictions  confirmed  by  experi- 
ment, sometimes  finds  itself  "  safe "  only  in  a  dark  malo- 
dorous laboratory,  away  from  the  broader  adventures  of  the 
universe. 

And,  after  all,  is  not  the  guess  more  than  an  hypothesis? 
This  much  of  it  at  least  seems  unescapable  fact — the  fact  that 
is  constantly  impressed  upon  us,  of  the  universal  mind,  the 


Ch.  LII]          Does  Cosmic  Interflow  Explain?  869 

element  which  offsets  universal  motion  (including  its  mani- 
festation as  matter),  the  two  together  making  the  universe 
possible  and  worth  while — back  of  all  phenomena  the  Cosmic 
Soul,  which  is  sometimes  called  God,  which  generates  and 
includes  and  manifests  and  intercommunicates  all  person- 
alities that  are,  or  have  been,  or  are  to  be,  and  which,  with 
them,  dies  not. 


CHAPTEE  LIII 
PROS  AND  CONS  OF  THE  SPIRITISTIC  HYPOTHESIS 

THE  only  visible  hypothesis  left  being  that  each  person 
appearing  to  speak,  gesticulate,  or  write  through  the  medium 
is  really  the  postcarnate  individual  it  represents  itself  to  be, 
either  "  possessing  "  the  medium  or  controlling  her  words  and 
acts  by  something  like  hypnosis,  what  are  the  objections  to 
that  hypothesis? 

I.  Most  general,  and  perhaps  strongest,  is  the  universal 
objection  against  anything  new  under  the  sun — an  objection 
not  as  strong  as  before  the  new  things  of  the  last  thirty  or 
forty  years. 

But  are  the  a  priori  objections  to  spiritistic  communication 
so  great  as  to  require,  after  thirty  years  of  scientific  observa- 
tion, a  suspension  of  judgment  rather  than  the  interpretation 
of  any  phenomena  as  justifying  a  doctrine  so  subversive  and 
so  immense?  This  I  will  not  attempt  to  answer:  your  tem- 
perament will  form  your  conclusion  more  than  your  intellect 
will. 

II.  The  content  of  the  phenomena  does  not  justify  as- 
cribing them  to  intelligences  in  a  stage  more  advanced  than 
our  terrestrial  experience.     To  this  objection,  two  answers 
are  prominent — (a)  that  there  is  no  basis  for  the  prevalent 
superstition  that  the  change  from  this  life  to  the  next  involves 
a  sudden  and  immense  development  of  intelligence  and  char- 
acter.    On  the  contrary,  phenomena,  so  far  as  they  count, 
indicate  that  the  change  is  more  near  the  gradualness  of 
evolution,  being  not  so  much  in  the  personality  as  in  the 
environment,  like  the  change  from  a  land  of  scantness  and 
obstruction  to  a  land  of  adequacy  and  free  movement;  and 
(b)   that  the  difficulties  of  communication  prevent  its  con- 
veying any  adequate  notion  of  the  new  life.     The  scantiness 
and  imperfection  and  even  triviality  of  the  communications 
from  the  alleged  spirits  is  nothing  against  their  genuineness. 

870 


Ch.  LIII]      Proofs  Both  Ways  Unanswerable  871 

It  is  not  always  easy  to  talk  sense  through  one's  own  machine, 
let  alone  talking  it  through  a  machine  that  one  did  not  grow 
up  with,  and  that  was  not  made  to  fit. 

III.  Probably  the  chief  remaining  objection  is  the  frequent 
inconsistency  between  what  the  controls  know  and  what  they 
don't  know,  or  at  least  between  what  they  can  tell  and  what 
they  can't  tell.  I  have  already  said,  apropos  of  the  con- 
flicting statements  of  the  incarnate  Moses  and  the  control 
Moses  regarding  Imperator,  and  the  inability  of  controls  to 
repeat  the  contents  of  test  envelopes  prepared  by  them  in  this 
life,  that  these  facts  seem  unanswerable  against  spiritism — 
that  is :  unanswerable  with  our  present  knowledge.  Opposing 
them,  however,  is  perhaps  an  equal  array — perhaps  a  greater 
array,  of  unanswerable  facts  on  the  other  side,  equally  unan- 
swerable with  our  present  knowledge.  All  that  the  inquirer 
can  do  is  to  determine  on  which  side  the  preponderance  lies. 

I  know  that  I  am  risking  a  large  portion  of  whatever 
confidence  I  might  otherwise  inspire,  by  presenting  one  aspect 
of  the  case  that  seems  to  me  worth  while. 

So  far  as  one  is  entitled  to  believe  before  ample  verification, 
I  believe  (though  not  mainly  because  of  any  evidence  in  the 
Pr.  S.  P.  R.  or  anywhere  else  outside  of  my  own  experience) 
in  the  survival  of  bodily  death,  and  yet  I  never  knew  proof 
of  it  that  is  final.  Neither  did  I  ever  know  such  a  proof 
of  anything  else.  Chase  the  belief  that  two  and  two  make 
four  down  to  the  bottom,  and  it  rests  on  an  assumption — an 
assumption  that  seems  to  me  even  underneath  the  categorical 
imperative — the  assumption  that  because  under  given  known 
conditions  things  always  have  acted  in  a  given  way,  we  know 
all  the  conditions,  and  that  therefore  we  know  that  things  will 
always  act  the  same  way.  Now  the  assumption  against  spirit- 
ism isn't  by  any  means  as  fundamental  as  that ;  and  the  only 
reason  why  I  think  that  worth  alluding  to  at  all,  is  to  indicate 
that  the  fact  that  we  have  no  final  proof  of  spiritism  is  not 
necessarily  conclusive  against  it :  for  we  have  no  final  proof  of 
anything  else;  and  the  farther  we  get  away  from  everyday 
experience,  the  more  assumption  our  beliefs  inevitably  rest 
upon.  To  some  minds  a  faith  without  final  proof  appears 
question-begging.  I  confess  that  for  a  long  period  it  did  to 


872     Pros  and  Cons  of  the  Spiritistic  Hypothesis    [Bk.  Ill 

my  own.  But  it  is  a  question  what  proof  comes  near  enough 
to  finality:  none  can  reach  it. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  our  disbeliefs.  The  disbelief  in 
spiritism  is  partly  based  on  the  control's  inability  to  tell 
what  is  in  a  letter  written  by  him  in  the  previous  life  he 
professes  to  have  known.  Now  this  belief  rests  on  the  assump- 
tion that  the  control  is  as  well  able  to  communicate  evidential 
matter  as  other  matter,  and  this  assumption  rests  on  the  wider 
assumption  that,  even  if  there  is  a  future  life,  it  is  in  accord- 
ance with  the  laws  of  the  universe  that  we  mortals  in  the 
present  stage  of  our  evolution  should  have  open  to  us  evidence 
for  the  same  positive  belief  in  a  future  life  that  we  have  in 
this  one.  Now  that  last  assumption  is  directly  counter  to 
all  the  evidence  we  have,  and,  it  seems  to  me,  counter  to 
some  very  important  considerations. 

What  sort  of  a  life  in  this  world,  and  what  sort  of  a  death 
at  the  end  of  it,  have  been  the  lot  of  a  very  large  portion  of 
those  who  have  assumed  themselves  to  be  in  possession  of 
conclusive  evidence  for  a  future  life?  Not  to  dwell  on  re- 
ligious wars  and  persecutions,  the  loathsome  history  of  some 
aspects  of  asceticism,  including  some  of  Puritanism,  answers 
for  the  life,  and  Juggernaut  answers  for  the  death. 

Of  course  it  is  impossible  to  know  just  how  far  these 
abominations  have  rotted  the  experiences  of  believers:  for, 
opposed  to  the  abominations,  even  side  by  side  with  them  in 
the  same  lives,  have  been  many  admirable  things;  and  many 
more  admirable  things  in  believing  lives  where  there  were 
no  abominations  at  all.  Probably  the  nearest  line  of  division 
that  will  serve  us  well  is  that  between  a  fixed,  even  if  mis- 
taken, certainty  of  a  future  life,  and  a  belief  with  enough 
uncertainty  to  prevent  the  belief  destroying  the  significance 
and  value  of  this  life.  And  that  I  suspect  is  all  we  are  going 
to  have  in  this  life.  But  do  we  need  to  make  our  definition 
of  verification  so  narrow  that  we  cannot  believe  in  a  future 
life  before  we  have  experienced  it  ourselves,  or  shall  we  take 
a  less  rigid  canon  of  verification?  If  so,  what? 

Verifiable  statements  not  known  to  terrene  intelligence? 
As  has  been  already  shown,  in  this  life  there  can  be  no  such 
thing.  Where  can  we  get  the  verification?  The  nearest  we 
can  get  to  this  canon  is  probably  "  not  known." 


Ch.  LIII]        Mme.  de  Meissner's  Prophecy  873 

Verisimilitude?  This  too  is  a  question  of  probability  and 
temperament. 

Fulfillment  of  prophecy?  Whether  we  have  enough  cases 
that  look  like  it  to  demonstrate  it,  is  so  far  a  question  of  tem- 
perament. I  don't  think  we  have.  Probably  I  have  quoted 
the  best  of  the  recorded  ones.  The  index  will  help  you  review 
them.  Here  is  a  pretty  good-looking  one  not  yet  given,  from 
Mme.  de  Meissner.  She  gives  some  others  not  so  good — not 
far,  if  at  all,  beyond  probabilities  of  chance  (op.  cit.,  30-33) : 

"  It  was  nearing  the  end  of  the  month  of  August,  1906,  im- 
mediately after  the  close  of  the  Russo-Japanese  war,  and  my 
niece . . .  and  I  were  preparing  to  leave  St.  Petersburg  for  a  two 
months'  stay  in  Germany  before  sailing  for  the  United  States. 
Having  passed  a  strenuous  period  of  a  year  and  eight  months 
in  Russia  we  wished  to  find  some  quiet  spot  where,  undisturbed 
by  social  duties,  we  might  spend  our  days . . .  under  the  shade 

of  forest  trees 1  had  written  to  many  different  resorts  in 

Northern  Germany  only  to  receive  . . .  glowing  descriptions  of 
the  many  social  attractions. . . .  We  had  come  to  within  a  week 
of  the  first  of  September,  the  date  fixed  for  our  departure,  and 
still  were  without  any  settled  plans  as  to  our  destination,  so 
that  we  could  not  even  write  to ...  the  United  States  as  to  where 
to  address  our  letters.  Upon  awakening  one  morning ...  I,  in 
desperation,  said  to  myself :  '  Something  must  be  decided  upon 
to-day.' 

"  '  You  must  go  to  Munich,'  said  my  invisible  guides  in  reply. 
To  say  that  I  was  startled  . . .  would  but  faintly  express  my  feel- 
ings. Munich !  '  They '  wished  us  to  go  to  the  Southernmost 
part  of  Germany  when  I  was  looking  for  something  in  the  vicin- 
ity of  Hamburg,  from  which  port  we  were  to  sail. 

" I  objected :  '  But  I  do  not  wish  to  go  to  a  city.  I 

am  looking  for  some  place . . .  where  we  shall  have  pine  for- 
ests  ' 

" '  You  will  not  be  in  Munich  itself,  but  in  the  environs  of  the 
city ' 

" '  How  shall  I  know  about  this? ' 

" '  Go  to-day  at  four  o'clock  and  call  on  Mrs.  M ' 

"  I  had  met  her  but  some  two  or  three  times.  She  had  called 
upon  me  and  . . .  distinctly  stated  that  she  took  her  daily  walk 
in  the  early  afternoon  and  was  never  at  home  before  five  o'clock. 
In  what  manner  she  could  have  to  do  with  my  journey  to 
Munich  I  could  in  no  wise  see,  but,  in  accordance  with  the 
counsel  given  me,  I  called  at  the  appointed  hour  and  was  imme- 
diately ushered  into  the  drawing  room  where  sat  the  lady  in 
question. 

"  Having  settled  it  in  my  own  mind  that  I  had  been  sent  there 


874     Pros  and  Cons  of  the  Spiritistic  Hypothesis    [Bk.  Ill 

in  order  to  borrow  a  Baedeker... I  inquired,  after  exchanging 
a  few  remarks,  whether  she  had  one . . .  adding  that  I  was  think- 
ing of  going  to  Munich 

"  '  Munich ! '  she  exclaimed,  rising  suddenly.  '  Why,  I  have 
something  much  better  than  a  Baedeker,'  and  going  to  a  door 
she  opened  it  and  called  '  Charles,  come  in  here.' 

"A  moment  later  there  appeared  in  the  doorway  a  scholarly 
looking  man  whom  the  hostess  introduced  as  'Professor  X  of 
Cornell.'. ..' Professor  X  has  just  this  moment  arrived  direct 
from  Munich  and  he  can  tell  you  all  about  it. . . .'  On  the 
strength  of  the  information  then  and  there  received  . . .  my  niece 
and  I  found  our  way  to  an  enchanting  spot  called  '  Grunwald,' 
twenty  minutes  distant  from  Munich,  where,  in  the  heart  of  a 
wonderful  forest,  we  spent  two  perfect,  never  to  be  forgotten, 
months." 

I  know  no  more  possible  canons  of  verification :  so  it  looks 
to  me  as  if,  during  our  mortal  career,  we  are  inevitably  re- 
stricted to  weighing  probabilities. 

When  one  has  reached  a  preponderance  of  probability,  then 
and  not  before,  it  may  be  well  to  foster  an  exercise  of  those 
elements  of  mind  and  character  which  make  up  that  much 
misrepresented  and  much  perverted  virtue  called  Faith — 
which,  misused  and  battered  as  it  has  been,  we  may  yet  find 
good  reason  to  rescue  from  the  scrap  heap  of  abandoned  things. 
Though  often  misapplied  to  inspire  asceticism  and  persecution, 
it  has  not  perhaps  been  more  misapplied  than  Hope  and  Char- 
ity ;  and  it  certainly  has  kept  alive  most  of  the  dim  conscious- 
ness men  have  had  of  the  infinity  that,  little  as  we  can  guess 
about  it,  enspheres  our  lives,  and,  despite  all  skepticism,  often 
irradiates  them. 

To  return  to  the  question  of  survival.  If  all  the  phenomena 
outside  of  scientifically  evidential  matter  greatly  preponderate 
toward  the  spiritistic  solution,  would  not  the  absence  of  such 
matter,  or  even  an  evidential  contradiction,  be  legitimately 
regarded  as  probably  open  to  explanation  as  knowledge  in- 
creases ? 

Moreover,  has  not  the  line  for  what  is  evidential  been  drawn 
a  little  arbitrarily?  Is  a  fitting  emotion  or  a  strikingly 
characteristic  expression  any  less  evidence  of  the  existence 
of  a  personality  than  a  logical  demonstration?  Are  the 
alleged  communications  of  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Thaw's  children 


Ch.  LIU]  Case  Re-stated  875 

evidential?  Their  parents  think  so.  Are  G.  P.'s  showings 
of  affection  for  his  friends  evidential?  Even  Hodgson 
thought  so.  And  how  about  Hodgson's  excessively  character- 
istic touches?  What  did  James  appear  to  think? 

How,  too,  about  nobody's  characteristic  touches  getting 
mixed  with  anybody's  else?  That  seems  to  more  than  one 
observer  perhaps  the  greatest  marvel  in  the  whole  business, 
even  a  greater  marvel  than  reading  the  contents  of  the  en- 
velopes would  be.  Why  isn't  it  as  necessary  for  the  objector 
to  explain  that,  as  for  the  proponent  to  explain  the  fatal 
envelopes  ? 

But  on  the  logical  tack:  it  is  one  of  the  canons  of  the 
S.  P.  R.  that  nothing  that  can  be  accounted  for  by  telepathy 
from  the  living  must  be  regarded  as  telepathy  from  the  dead. 
This  was  my  own  attitude  at  first,  but  it  is  plainly  incon- 
clusive :  there  is  only  a  very  strong  presumption  in  its  favor. 
That  a  mysterious  communication  may  have  come  from  A  is 
far  from  proof  that  it  did  not  come  from  B,  or  from  some- 
body never  heard  of,  or  from  somebody  whose  existence  has 
previously  been  supposed  impossible. 

But  even  admitting  that  the  telepathy  from  the  living  is 
to  be  preferred  when  possible,  is  it  legitimate  to  include  under 
telepathy  all  the  dramatic  indications  of  personality  ? 

In  our  present  knowledge  there  appear  but  two  possible 
hypotheses  to  account  for  these  phenomena.  At  the  cost  of 
some  repetition,  let  me  rehearse  them  in  a  different  shape. 
As  I  believe  I  have  said  elsewhere,  a  single  statement  is  apt  to 
do  well  enough  for  only  definite  things — the  multiplication 
table,  for  instance. 

The  first  hypothesis  involves  three  propositions : 

a.  The  medium  receives  impressions  from  the  minds  of  the 
sitters. 

b.  The  medium  also  receives  impressions  from  the  minds 
of  absent  living  persons,   apparently   independently   of  all 
limitations  in  number  or  location. 

c.  The  medium  combines  these  impressions  into  representa- 
tions by  word  and  gesture,  of  personalities  of  all  ages,  sexes, 
and  characters,  and  does  it  with  a  power  of  dramatization 
to  be  compared  in  vividness  and  consistency  (not  in  sublimity) 


876     Pros  and  Cons  of  the  Spiritistic  Hypothesis    [Bk.  Ill 

only  with  those  shown  in  the  very  greatest  dramatic  creations ; 
and  with  a  fertility  entirely  unprecedented.  Moreover,  these 
wonderful  dramatizations  are  on  the  spur  of  the  moment, 
entirely  involuntary  and  are  even  made  independently  of  the 
consciousness  of  their  creator.  Still  more,  this  hypothetical 
dramatic  power  is  not  restricted  to  one  or  two  persons  in  a 
generation,  as  all  comparable  dramatic  power  has  been,  but 
exists  in  considerable  numbers  of  people,  and  is  believed  to 
be  latent  in  large  numbers  more. 

So  much  for  the  first  hypothesis,  swallow  it  who  can.  Now 
the  only  other  hypothesis  within  our  horizon  is : 

a.  The  dramatis  persona  represented  by  the  medium  are 
actual  personalities,  whether  using  the  medium's  body  to  mani- 
fest themselves,  or  doing  it  in  dreams.    The  apparent  absurd- 
ity of  "  You  come  in  by  the  hands,  I'll  go  out  by  the  feet," 
does  not  affect  the  case  any  more  than  the  absurdities  of 
dreams  affect  their  occasional  veridicity. 

b.  Most   of  the  personalities  thus  manifesting   formerly 
had  bodies  of  their  own  on  this  earth.    I  can  recall  but  one 
case  where  a  personality  while  having  a  living  body  has  dis- 
tinctly seemed  to  "  possess  "  a  medium.    Mrs.  Piper  once  when 
holding  a  MS.  of  Dr.  Wiltse  proceeded  to  enact  him,  and  state 
that  he  was  dead,  and  his  body  in  the  water.    He  was  well, 
and  knew  nothing  about  it.    (Pr.  XV,  25.)     Foster  had  visions 
of  living  men.     Some  of  Moses'  controls,  I  believe,  profess 
never  to  have  been  incarnate.    But  they  had,  so  far  as  I  know, 
defective  appearance  of  veridicity  and  very  clear  appearance 
of  being  figments  of  the  medium's  religious  convictions. 

This  second  hypothesis  accounts  for  a  sub-series  of  phe- 
nomena which  the  first  hypothesis  does  not,  and  therefore  to 
that  degree  gains  probability  as  against  the  first  hypothesis. 
This  sub-series  consists  of  phenomena  manifested  by  personali- 
ties— dramatically  created  or  actual — for  whose  dramatic  cre- 
ation no  material  exists  in  the  mind  of  any  living  person, 
except  as  material  for  dramatic  creation  exists  to  some  degree 
in  all  minds.  Such  a  "  personality  "  is  that  of  "  Imperator," 
who  is  represented  as  having  died  before  any  person  described 
in  the  first  hypothesis  was  born.  Apparently  he  is  either  en- 
tirely a  creation  of  the  medium's  imagination  (and  that  when 


Ch.  LIU]        How  about  Unverifiable  Cases?  877 

the  medium's  personality  is  apparently  inactive),  with  some 
possible  telepathic  help  from  friends,  or  is  an  existing  per- 
sonality. 

The  second  hypothesis  of  course  lends  probability  to  the 
old  idea  that  the  soul  is  independent  of  the  body  and  uses  the 
body  as  a  mere  tool — a  machine  for  thinking  and  expressing, 
one  which  the  soul  can't  do  much  with  when  the  machine  is  out 
of  order,  or  anything  when  it  is  fatally  damaged  or  worn  out. 

If,  for  the  purposes  of  the  argument,  we  assume  that  tele- 
pathy and  teloteropathy  dispose  of  all  the  verifiable  cases, 
how  about  the  unverifiable  ones  ?  They  are  just  as  interesting 
and  plausible  as  the  verifiable  ones.  Does  the  fact  that  they 
can't  be  verified  prove  them  imaginary  or  fraudulent?  Of 
course  it  does  if  our  canon  of  verification  is  that  they  must 
be  verified  by  some  incarnate  being.  But  they  cannot  be 
verifiable  by  any  incarnate  mind  without  being  open  to  the 
suspicion  of  being  telepathically  supplied  by  that  mind.  But 
can't  they  easily  be  true,  and  still  unverifiable  by  any  in- 
carnate human  being?  Not  only  might  one  easily  be  true 
of  you  or  me,  and  yet  so  absolutely  forgotten  as  to  be  un- 
verifiable; but  must  not  many  a  true  case  (if  any  are  true) 
be  lost  by  impossibility  of  obtaining  adequate  testimony  ? 

It  appears,  then,  that  unverifiability  is  by  no  means  a  con- 
clusive argument  against  the  truth  of  any  communication, 
and  yet  throughout  the  reports  of  the  sittings  there  is  a  general 
tendency  to  dismiss  the  unverifiable  ones  as  nothing  more 
than  interesting  fiction. 

The  scientific  canon  that  causes  counter  to  experience  must 
not  be  invoked  until  those  conformable  with  experience  have 
been  exhausted,  is  carried  to  an  illegitimate  extreme  when 
it  is  given  the  virtual  shape  that  phenomena  which  cannot 
be  accounted  for  by  causes  conformable  with  experience  must 
be  rejected  as  fraudulent  or  imaginary.  In  that  shape  the 
canon  would  have  led  many  savages  to  depend  upon  what  we 
call  Christian  science,  against  their  discoverers'  guns ;  and  the 
converse  of  it — that  the  verdict  of  experience  must  always  be 
accepted,  led  scientists  to  deny  the  possibility  of  a  rail  car 
that  would  go  over  twelve  miles  an  hour,  and  of  more 
than  one  electric  light  on  a  circuit,  and  probably  would  have 


878     Pros  and  Cons  of  the  Spiritistic  Hypothesis    [Bk.  Ill 

led  everybody,  before  the  discovery  of  the  Hertzian  waves,  to 
deny  the  possibility  of  the  wireless  telegraph. 

We  have,  then,  a  vast  mass  of  profoundly  interesting  phe- 
nomena which  are  worth  taking  into  account,  and  which  can- 
not be  accounted  for  by  any  form  of  telepathy  or  any  cause 
justified  by  experience.  On  the  surface,  the  phenomena  are 
ostensibly  caused  by  human  intelligences  surviving  death. 
Eeject  that  cause,  and  (pace  Drs.  Tanner  and  Hall)  there  is 
no  other  in  sight.  Is  it  not  the  point  of  wisdom  to  accept 
it  tentatively  until  another  heaves  in  sight,  or  until  farther 
experience  confirms  it? 

Why  give  a  tentative  character  to  the  acceptance?  The 
reasons  come  under  two  heads.  The  experience  is  too  scant 
as  yet  to  justify  full  acceptance,  and  the  conditions  of  the 
alleged  spirits  communicating  do  not  conform  to  our  ideas 
of  what  they  should  be.  Both  reasons  justify  a  tentative  posi- 
tion, but  neither  justifies  a  negative  one.  The  second  reason 
may  turn  out  to  be  absolutely  flimsy.  We  have  often  had 
our  ideas  and  feelings  enlisted  in  conditions  which  turned 
out  not  to  be  true.  My  dear  friend  Sill,  when  we  were 
freshmen,  wrote  a  beautiful  poem  that  captured  the  university 
world  and  has  since  helped  materially  in  his  capture  of  the 
whole  world  of  poetry  lovers.  Its  theme  was  "  The  Polar 
Sea."  Kane  believed  there  was  such  a  sea,  and  demonstrated 
it  more  scientifically  than  anybody  ever  demonstrated  the 
orthodox  ideas  of  a  future  state.  But  neither  Sill's  poem  nor 
Kane's  science  has  led  anybody  to  doubt  Peary's  discovery 
that  there  is  no  polar  sea:  so  our  old  ideas  of  what  there  is 
or  is  not  beyond  this  life  may  be  like  Sill's  and  Kane's  idea 
of  the  polar  sea. 

We  have  applied  the  hypothesis  of  a  world  soul  to  telepathy 
inter  vivos.  Now  let  us  gather  up  some  of  our  scattered 
threads  and  try  to  get  a  little  more  connected  view  of  how 
it  fits  in  with  the  phenomenon  of  mediumship. 

Admit,  provisionally  at  least,  that  the  medium  is  merely 
an  extraordinary  dreamer.  Does  a  man  do  his  own  dreaming, 
or  is  it  done  for  him?  Does  a  man  do  his  own  digesting, 
circulating,  assimilating,  or  is  it  done  for  him?  If  he  does 
not  do  these  things  himself,  who  does?  About  the  physical 


Ch.  LIII]    Who  Runs  Our  Functions  when  We  Sleep?    879 

functions  through  the  sympathetic  nerve,  we  answer  unhesi- 
tatingly: the  cosmic  force.  How,  then,  about  the  psychic 
functions?  Are  they  done  by  the  cosmic  psyche? 

Like  respiration,  they  are  partly  under  our  control,  but  that 
does  not  affect  the  problem.  Who  runs  them  when  we  do 
not  run  them,  even  when  we  try  to  stop  them  that  we  may 
get  to  sleep?  Even  after  they  have  yielded  to  our  entreaties 
to  stop,  and  we  are  asleep,  they  begin  going  again — without 
our  will,  and  sometimes,  some  think,  even  without  our  know- 
ledge— that  thinking  never  stops,  and  that  often  when  it  goes 
on  in  the  dream  state  we  are  unconscious  of  it  or  forget  it. 
The  only  probability  I  can  make  out  is  that  our  thinking  is 
run  by  a  power  not  ourselves,  as  much  as  our  other  partly- 
involuntary  functions. 

To  hold  that  a  man  does  his  own  dreaming — that  it  is 
done  by  a  secondary  layer  of  his  own  consciousness — is  to 
hold  that  we  are  made  up  of  layers  of  consciousness,  of  which 
the  poorest  layer  is  that  of  what  we  call  our  waking  life, 
and  the  better  layers  are  at  our  service  only  in  our  dreams. 
The  theory  says  in  effect :  you  are  the  owner  of  certain  tools, 
but  the  conditions  under  which  you  own  them  prescribe  that, 
for  all  the  work  required  of  you,  you  can  use  only  the  worst, 
and  the  best  are  at  your  service  only  when  you  either  have 
no  intention  of  working  at  all  or  are  incapacitated  from  seri- 
ous work  by  some  form  of  unconsciousness  or  madness. 

This  is  as  fair  a  statement  as  I  can  make  of  the  layer-of- 
consciousness  theory — that  when  a  man  is  asleep  or  mad  he 
can  solve  problems,  compose  music,  create  pictures,  to  which, 
when  awake  and  in  his  sober  senses,  and  in  a  condition  to 
profit  by  his  work,  and  give  profit  from  it,  he  is  inade- 
quate. There  will  be  evidence  of  this  in  the  chapters  on 
dreams. 

Nay  more,  the  theory  claims  that  a  man's  working  con- 
sciousness— his  self — the  only  self  known  to  him  or  the 
world,  will  hold  and  shape  his  life  by  a  set  of  convictions 
which,  in  sleep  or  madness,  he  will  himself  prove  wrong,  and 
thereby  revolutionize  his  philosophy  and  his  entire  life. 

Wouldn't  it  be  more  reasonable  to  attribute  all  such  results 
— the  solutions  of  the  problems,  the  music,  the  pictures,  the 
corrections  of  the  errors — to  a  power  outside  himself? 


880     Pros  and  Cons  of  the  Spiritistic  Hypothesis    [Bk.  Ill 

Now  if  to  anybody  this  theory  that  multiple  selves,  that 
"  the  unconscious  "  and  all  that,  are  part  of  a  man's  self, 
and  nothing  more,  appears  monstrous,  what  does  experience 
offer  in  its  place? 

First,  indications  of  a  consciousness  aware  of  everything 
that  is  going  on,  or  has  gone  on,  at  least  within  the  sphere 
of  its  activity,  and  which  includes,  and  reaches  far  outside  of, 
our  activity  and  our  knowledge.  All  individual  conscious- 
nesses seem  to  be,  in  some  mysterious  way,  not  only  them- 
selves, but  part  of  that  universal  consciousness:  for  we  get 
from  it  not  only  wondrous  dream  images  of  all  kinds,  but 
mysterious  impressions  from  individual  consciousnesses  other 
than  our  own,  which,  with  our  own,  are  part  of  it. 

This  hypothesis,  or  guess,  or  string  of  guesses,  does  not 
seem  at  war  with  any  of  the  facts.  It  gives  a  meaning  where 
otherwise  there  is  none,  to  the  generally  accepted  term  "the 
subliminal  self."  It  admits  of  our  being  one  layer,  or  the 
core,  if  you  please,  of  the  onion,  while  the  other  layers  are 
in  the  general  consciousness ;  it  admits  an  "  unconscious,"  i.e., 
something  of  which  we  are  generally  unconscious;  and  it  ad- 
mits "  spirits,"  incarnate  and  discarnate,  who,  like  each  of  us, 
are  parts,  and  yet  not  exclusively  parts,  of  the  general  con- 
sciousness, and  act  telepathically  upon  us,  and  each  other, 
both  in  their  individual  and  "  corporate  "  capacities. 

All  this  seems  terribly  like  the  mere  word-jargon  of  the 
theologies  and  early  philosophies.  But  it  at  least  deals  with 
insistent  facts,  and  professes  to  be  no  more  than  it  is — a 
string  of  guesses,  some  of  them  very  vague  guesses,  but 
nevertheless  with  a  certain  coherence  among  themselves  and 
fitness  to  the  phenomena  which  perhaps  none  of  the  other 
guesses  possess,  and  affording  some  glimmerings  that,  as  the 
clouds  rise,  may  turn  out  to  be  fragments  of  an  explanation. 


CHAPTER  LIV 
THE  DREAM  LIFE 

I  HOPE  my  iterations  regarding  dreams  have  not  grown 
utterly  damnable,  as  you  are  destined,  if  your  patience  holds 
out,  to  read  considerably  more  on  that  subject.  What  I  have 
found  to  say  of  the  extraordinary  dreams  of  the  sensitives,  is 
far  from  including  all  that  dreams  suggest  regarding  our 
Cosmic  Relations:  still  less  are  the  questions  about  dreams 
all  answered  when  dreams  are  pronounced  merely  the  results 
of  indigestion  or  other  physical  disturbance:  sometimes  they 
certainly  are,  and  sometimes  apparently  they  are  not;  but  if 
they  always  were,  there  would  still  remain  features  of  them 
worth  careful  study. 

The  relation  of  the  soul  in  the  dream  state  to  the  universe 
has  been  regarded  as  of  great  importance  by  almost  all  primi- 
tive peoples,  probably  of  less  importance  by  many  persons 
more  advanced,  but  lately  of  still  greater  importance  by  a 
few  persons  still  more  advanced.  Yet  even  the  S.  P.  R.  has 
taken  ordinary  dreams  much  as  matters  of  course,  and  mainly 
confined  its  investigation  of  the  dream  state  to  somnambulism, 
hypnosis,  and  trance.  But  ordinary  dreams  offer  some  sug- 
gestions that  have  been  none  too  widely  noted.  To  the  spec- 
ulative inquirer  the  dream  life  sometimes  seems  even  more 
important  than  the  waking  life,  but  at  other  times  the  sus- 
picion arises  that  the  waking  life  should  be  so  strenuously 
led  as  to  leave  little  attention  free  for  dreams.  Both  atti- 
tudes are  probably  right.  On  one  side,  the  dream  life  has 
claims  to  be  considered  part  of  an  eternal  life;  on  the  other 
side,  while  interest  in  an  eternal  life  may  be  an  admirable 
stimulus  in  this  life,  there  may  be  in  it,  as  in  less  worthy 
stimulants,  enough  of  the  danger  of  excess  to  lead  some  very 
wise  men  to  abstain.  But  there  is  not  as  much  danger  to-day 
as  in  earlier  times,  and  the  fact  that  we  can  therefore  be 
more  safely  trusted  with  the  knowledge  of  a  future  life  may 

881 


882  The  Dream  Life  [Bk.  Ill 

raise  some  presumption  that  the  increasing  apparent  indica- 
tions of  it  are  genuine. 

Not  only  are  some  people's  ordinary  dreams  much  more 
frequent  and  vivid  than  other  people's,  but  much  more 
coherent  and  perhaps  significant;  and  it  seems  probable  that 
the  most  interesting  dreams  come  to  people  who  have  some 
of  the  peculiar  gifts  of  the  mediums.  Moreover  in  other 
respects,  the  experiences  of  virtually  all  the  mediums  whom  I 
have  read  of  seem  substantially  identical  with  dreams.  For  in- 
stance, those  of  Mrs.  Richmond,  as  recounted  in  Barrett's  Life 
of  her,  might  be  applied  verbatim  to  dreams,  and  Tuttle  says 
(letter  to  Densmore,  Arcana  of  Nature,  p.  464),  "Thoughts 
which  came  in  the  sensitive  state  made  no  lasting  impression, 
and  I  am  unable  to  recall  why  or  how  any  passage  came  to 
be  written."  This  is  like  the  evanescence  of  dreams.  Judge 
Edmonds'  reported  visions  are  dreams  pure  and  simple. 
This  feature  in  the  experiences  of  the  later  mediums,  I  have 
harped  upon  until  I  fear  I  have  wearied  you. 

Their  experiences  seem  to  differ  only  in  degree  from  those 
which  virtually  all  of  us  experience  in  ordinary  dreams. 
We  all  see  and  hear  what  appear  to  be  persons  out  of  the 
reach  of  our  ordinary  senses,  and  sometimes  not  even  living 
— separate  copies  of  the  Ideas  of  such  persons.  If  it  shall 
ever  be  established  that  the  mediums  really  are  in  communica- 
tion with  an  eternal  life,  some  correspondence,  perhaps  some 
identity,  of  the  dream  life  with  it  will  be  established. 

Yet  the  most  tremendous  facts  about  dreams  are  so  tre- 
mendous that  dreams  are  generally  taken  as  purely  illusive, 
and  no  weight  attached  to  them.  Such  a  fact  is 

The  Superiority  of  the  Dream  Life  to  Time  and  Space 

As  to  time,  there  can  be  little  question,  though  there  are 
some  of  the  uncertainties  attending  all  subjects  on  the  border- 
land of  knowledge.  Of  this  more  later. 

Eegarding  space,  there  is  some  perplexity.  The  fact  that 
the  same  thought  and  the  same  feeling  can  be  in  innumerable 
places  at  once  suggests  the  possibility  that  the  same  aggregate 
of  thoughts  and  feelings — i.e.,  the  same  soul — may  be. 
Most  savages,  and  not  a  few  savants,  think  the  soul  actually 


Ch,  LIV]    Waking  Hallucinations  versus  Sleeping          883 

does  go  to  the  places  where,  in  dreams,  it  seems  to  go.  But 
isn't  there  more  apparent  probability  that  the  places  come 
to  it — that  the  Ideas  of  them — their  essentials,  come  to  the 
dreamer  from  the  cosmic  mind? 

This  question  as  to  space  seems  to  raise  the  old  contest 
between  idealism  and  realism — whether  space  and  its  con- 
tents are  really  external  to  the  mind,  which,  so  far  as  I 
understand  such  things,  I  suppose  was  reconciled  by  Kant 
by  proving  both  sides  right  I  treated  it  earlier,  but 
have  a  word  more  to  say  in  the  present  connection.  The 
way  it  presents  itself  to  my  utterly  unmetaphysical  and 
bountifully  uninstructed  mind  is  this:  the  distinctions  we 
draw  between  real  and  ideal  are  sometimes  a  result  of  the 
limitations  of  our  faculties.  They  being  what  they  are,  a 
phenomenon,  to  be  normal  to  them,  must  be  a  reaction  be- 
tween them  and  the  part  of  the  universe  external  to  them. 
The  "  discovery "  of  this  obvious  fact  I  understand  to  be 
one  of  Kant's  claims  to  immortality.  If  so,  immortality  of 
some  kinds  is  sometimes  cheap.  But  to  continue:  If  the 
phenomenon  arises  in  the  consciousness  without  excitation 
from  the  external  universe,  it  is  an  hallucination,  and  if  the 
mind  has  frequent  hallucinations  and  accepts  them  as  reali- 
ties, that  way  madness  lies.  That  is  to  say:  if  the  mind 
doesn't  know  the  difference  between  what  it  holds  without 
the  warrant  of  external  reality,  and  what  it  holds  with  that 
warrant,  it  is  insane.  Foster  knew  the  difference. 

But  this  is  true  of  the  mind  only  in  its  ordinary  workaday 
state — the  mind  which  has  been  evolved  by  reactions  with 
that  environment  whose  relation  to  it  is,  as  stated,  a  condition 
of  its  sanity.  But  man  seems  able  to  contain  at  intervals 
in  the  dream  state  another  and  wider  mind  than  that  which 
has  been  evolved  by  his  contact  with  his  everyday  environ- 
ment— a  mind  which  carries  impressions  external  to,  and 
superior  to,  any  obviously  produced  by  reactions  with  that 
environment,  and  which,  though  it  experiences  what,  to  the 
everyday  mind,  would  be  hallucinations,  does  so  without  any 
unfavorable  effects  on  the  individual's  sanity. 

Though  the  phenomena  of  what  we  usually  call  the  real 
world  are  not  in  all  respects  the  equivalent  of  the  phenomena 
of  the  dream  world,  if  the  universe  of  our  waking  senses  is 


884  The  Dream  Life  [Bk.  Ill 

but  a  mass  of  passing  expressions  of  permanent  Ideas,  as  I 
think  I  showed  some  reason  to  believe  in  Chapter  XXIII,  why 
is  not  the  universe  of  dreams,  so  far  as  we  can  get  at  it 
without  the  nonsense  injected  by  physical  defects,  just  as 
real?  Would  not  calling  it  less  real  be  something  like  the 
declaration  made  by  certain  people  that  to  them  the  imagina- 
tive world  of  the  poets,  artists,  and  musicians  has  no  mean- 
ing? 

Superior  Powers  in  Dreams 

Generally  in  the  discussions,  on  one  page,  dreams  are  treated 
as  mere  figments  of  a  quiescent  and  acquiescent  imagination 
played  upon  by  disturbed  bodily  organs,  while  on  the  next 
page  they  are  admitted  to  be  the  media  of  truths  apparently 
otherwise  undiscoverable,  and  the  conditions  of  performances 
apparently  otherwise  impossible.  Yet  the  two  positions  are 
not  necessarily  mutually  exclusive. 

One  reason  for  the  apparent  paradox  is  that  here,  as  in 
the  communications  from  the  mediums,  the  most  significant 
matter  is  the  most  intimate,  and  therefore  the  most  unavail- 
able for  publication. 

Another  reason  for  the  paradox  is  that  though  each  vision, 
waking  or  sleeping,  must  have  a  cause,  and  as  an  expression 
of  that  cause  must  be  veridical,  on  the  one  hand,  the  cause 
of  a  trivial  dream  is  generally  too  trivial  to  be  ascertained: 
it  may  be  too  much  lobster,  or  impaired  circulation  or  respira- 
tion; while  on  the  other  hand  (and  here  the  paradox  seems 
to  be  explained),  the  cause  of  an  important  dream  must,  ex 
vi  termini,  be  some  important  event.  But  important  events 
are  rare,  and  therefore  significant  dreams  are  rare;  while 
trivial  events  are  frequent,  and  therefore  trivial  dreams  are 
frequent. 

The  important  and  rare  event  may  be  such  a  conjunction 
of  circumstances  and  temperaments  as  makes  it  possible  for 
a  postcarnate  intelligence,  assuming  the  existence  of  such,  to 
communicate  with  an  incarnate  one.  That  such  apparent 
communications  are  rare  tends  to  indicate  their  genuineness. 
The  question :  "  If  they  are  possible,  why  are  they  not  fre- 
quent ?  "  ignores  their  probable  difficulty — a  difficulty  appar- 
ently so  great  that  one  portion  of  the  very  people  who  ask 


Ch.  LIV]  Dreams  of  Architecture  885 

the  question  generally  regard  the  difficulty  as  amounting  to 
impossibility;  while  the  other  portion,  of  course,  deny  that 
postcarnate  intelligences  exist  at  all — deny  that  the  Idea  is 
eternal,  and  claim  that  but  one  complete  copy  of  it  can 
exist.  There  are  to  be  some  things  in  this  and  the  next 
chapter  that  look  to  me  very  much  as  if  such  people  were 
wrong. 

Although,  as  I  have  said  before,  I  write  as  a  commentator, 
not  as  an  original  investigator,  it  has  yet  been  my  fortune 
to  be  able  to  introduce  the  principal  departments  of  our 
borderland  study  by  direct  testimony  of  my  personal  observa- 
tion— of  telekinesis  with  P ,  telepathy  with  Foster,  and 

Possession  (?)  with  Mrs.  Piper.  Pretty  much  everybody  can 
do  the  same  regarding  dreams,  though  possibly  there  may 
be  some  features  in  mine  so  peculiar — certainly  as  yet  so 
little  noticed  in  the  dreams  of  others,  as  to  warrant  my 
again  giving,  like  Freud,  my  personal  experience,  even  in  a 
department  where  there  is  so  much  general  experience  at  hand. 
Perhaps  I  may  indulge  the  hope  that  your  following  my 
devious  and  broken  clues  thus  far  shows  us  to  be  enough  in 
sympathy  for  you  to  tolerate  my  egotism. 

From  childhood  I  have  had  architectural  dreams  surpassing 
anything  I  have  ever  seen  in  waking  hours.  At  first  they 
were  of  Romanesque  buildings  with  abundant  piazzas,  arcades, 
and  terraces,  and  in  the  midst  of  beautiful  scenery.  As  a 
child  I  took  them  as  matters  of  course,  and  I  have  no  doubt 
that  they  were  suggested  by  stage  scenery  and  proscenium 
curtains,  though  I  am  confident  that  they  surpassed  any 
such  pictures  that  I  ever  saw.  As  I  reached  maturity  and 
greater  activity  in  other  interests,  such  dreams  grew  less  fre- 
quent, but  as  old  age  and  comparative  leisure  have  drawn  on 
they  have  dropped  in  again  a  few  times,  but  with  a  difference : 
though  they  are  still  beautiful,  the  romantic  character  of 
youth  is  seldom  there.  During  this  later  period,  the 
dream  structures  have  been  almost  entirely  in  the  colonial 
style,  but  there  has  been  no  romantic  scenery  associated  with 
them :  this  despite  the  fact  that  during  the  period,  I  have 
lived  most  of  each  year  among  some  of  the  most  romantic 
scenery  in  the  world. 


886  The  Dream  Life  [Bk.  Ill 

I  distinctly  recall  two  dreams  that  were  bounded,  roughly 
speaking,  by  South  Washington  Square,  Macdougal  Street, 
Canal  Street,  and  Wooster  Street,  and  they  changed  that 
dingy  region  into  a  more  beautiful  group  of  homes  than 
exists  anywhere  I  have  visited  in  the  flesh. 

One  striking  effect  was  from  yellow  brick,  which  I  believe 
the  Colonials  did  not  have,  and  marble  trimmings.  These 
made  more  substantial  and  massive  the  effect  the  Colonials 
got  in  minor  measure  from  wooden  houses  painted  yellow 
with  white  trimmings. 

The  streets,  like  the  houses,  were  changed  and  idealized — 
broadened  and  some  intersecting  at  irregular  angles.  The 
opportunities  of  the  non-rectangular  lots  thus  made  were 
beautifully  utilized,  especially  at  the  corners.  So  were  those 
of  differences  of  level.  The  yellow  brick  predominated, 
though  it  was  not  exclusively  used.  Most  of  the  houses  were 
very  large,  and  they  were  broken  up  at  the  ends  or  rear  with 
much  variety  of  roof-level,  and  piazzas,  conservatories, 
sunning-rooms,  and  terraces.  A  remarkable  feature  was  that, 
notwithstanding  all  the  departures  from  symmetry,  the  dis- 
tinctly colonial  character  was  always  preserved,  and  no  ques- 
tion of  consistency  or  fitness  was  ever  aroused. 

I  wandered  through  the  region  repeatedly,  returning 
several  times  to  spots  that  I  specially  enjoyed,  and  once 
went  back  to  the  commonplace  world  through  Bleecker  Street 
to  Broadway,  rejoicing  that  the  way  to  the  delightful 
region  was  so  short  and  well  known,  and  promising  myself 
many  returns  to  it  with  friends.  I  remember  my  pleasure 
at  finding  myself  there  again  in  the  second  dream.  Then 
I  entered  at  the  South,  somewhere  near  Canal  or  Varick 
Street. 

I  have  some  vague  recollection  of  disappointment  in  other 
dreams  before  and  since  the  successful  second  visit,  from 
seeking  the  beautiful  region  in  vain. 

Another  dream  was  in  a  suburban  region,  and  was  prob- 
ably suggested  by  the  environs  of  Baltimore,  though  it  was 
not  dreamed  there,  and  was  vastly  superior  to  anything  ex- 
isting there.  I  remember  being  driven  down  one  broad  tree- 
planted  street  with  houses  on  each  side  at  generous  intervals 


Ch.  LIV]  Dreams  of  Architecture  887 

— so  generous  that  I  remember  my  curiosity  while  glancing 
at  each  house,  as  to  what  the  next  house  would  be. 

That  curiosity,  too,  I  think  I  had  in  the  New  York 
dreams.  Is  it  consistent  with  the  hypothesis  that  I  created 
all  of  them  myself?  Is  it  not  a  more  rational  guess  that 
they  were  telepathically  impressed  upon  me  from  outside — 
that  I  was  permitted  to  see  these  copies  of  Ideas  outside  of 
my  mind? 

Here  is  a  very  different  architectural  dream. 

I  seemed  to  be  standing  in  front  of  the  Brooklyn  Opera 
House,  and  to  be  facing  some  sort  of  public  building,  about 
sixty  feet  wide,  across  the  street.  What  is  really  there  I 
have  no  idea,  as  I  never  saw  the  opera  house  but  once  in 
driving  past,  and  did  not  look  on  the  other  side  of  the  street : 
I  am  not  a  connoisseur  or  even  an  amateur  of  Brooklyn,  which 
makes  the  location  of  my  dream  there  a  little  strange.  Yet 
I  can  summon  up  some  fanciful  reasons  which  I  do  not 
really  entertain,  though  as  I  re-read  this  sentence  months 
later  they  seemed  stronger. 

Well,  after  all  this  preface,  here  are  the  essentials,  such 
as  they  are.  On  one  side  of  the  building  across  the  street 
I  dreamed  a  palatial  house.  All  my  earlier  urban  archi- 
tectural dreams  have  been  colonial,  generally  yellow  brick 
and  marble.  This  house  was  red  brick  with  Nova  Scotia 
stone,  French  renaissance  in  style,  with  mansards.  It  was 
very  large,  and  if  it  erred  from  perfect  taste,  which  I  hardly 
think  it  did,  it  was  in  over-elaboration.  Yet  I  did  have 
an  impression  of  the  owner  having  recently  come  into  a  lot 
of  money,  which  I  don't  think  I  would  have  had  if  the 
house  had  been  as  near  perfection  as  those  I  usually 
dream. 

I  remember  that  the  day  before  this  dream  I  read  that 
a  certain  abominable  French  renaissance  structure  on  Fifth 
Avenue,  built  for  a  man  who  has  recently  come  into  a  lot 
of  money,  is  to  be  sold.  But,  thank  God!  I  didn't  dream 
that  house,  but  did  dream  one  that  perhaps  might  be  called 
everything  which,  it  is  to  be  charitably  presumed,  that  house 
tried  to  be  and  is  not.  This  I  can  say  without  drawing  too 
hard  on  my  small  balance  of  modesty:  for  I  certainly  was 
not  the  architect  Will  you  kindly  tell  me  who  was? 


888  The  Dream  Life  [Bk.  Ill 

One  proof  that  he  was  not  I,  is  my  surprise  at  finding,  on 
looking  to  the  left,  that  the  opulent  owner  of  the  new  house 
had  spread  around  the  public  building  I  mentioned,  and  on 
the  other  side  treated  himself  to  a  gorgeous  stable  not  ex- 
actly uniform  with  the  dwelling,  but  nearly  enough  so  to 
show  that  they  constituted  one  menage — a  nearness  with 
variety  meriting  congratulations  to  the  architect,  if,  again, 
you  will  kindly  send  me  his  name  and  address.  I  would 
especially  like  them,  as  I  have  a  son  just  entering  the  pro- 
fession, for  whom  I  would  like  to  try  to  secure  his  friendly 
interest. 

And  as  all  these  buildings  were  finer  than  anything  I  can  do, 
or  than  any  mortal  has  done  in  the  same  style,  is  not  the  evi- 
dence that  they  were  sent  to  me  from  outside  strengthened? 

Does  not  all  this  add  force  to,  and  receive  force  from,  the 
considerations  before  presented  which  indicate  that  all  our 
mental  experiences  come,  in  the  same  sense  that  our  physical 
ones  do,  from  outside? 

But  the  evidence  is  not  all  in  yet 

Vastly  more  interesting  to  me  than  my  dreams  of  archi- 
tecture, though  less  practicable  to  describe,  are  my  dreams 
of  decoration  and  bric-a-brac.  They  also  contain  much  more 
suggestion  of  Ideas  outside  of  my  mind. 

According  to  the  best  recollections  I  can  summon  up,  they, 
unlike  the  architectural  dreams,  never  came  before  the  death 
of  a  close  friend,  one  of  whose  few  lacks  of  a  complete  human 
equipment  was  decorative  taste.  My  own  lack  there  is  con- 
spicuous, even  among  my  other  lacks,  and  I  have  not  been 
able,  nor  have  I  tried  very  hard,  to  keep  out  of  my  mind 
the  suggestion  that  this  friend  is  playing  upon  me  telepathic- 
ally  and  half  humorously,  to  hint  that  the  lack  is  made  up 
in  the  new  life,  and  to  help  along  my  deficiencies  here.  I 
by  no  means  accept  this  half-sportive  fancy  as  fact,  and 
probably  would  not  have  been  visited  by  it  at  all  but  for  far 
stronger  indications  of  survival.  My  most  important  con- 
viction regarding  the  source  of  the  creations  I  am  about  to 
describe,  is  merely  that  it  is  outside  of  me. 

I  dream  long  suites  of  rooms  apparently  designed  more  as 
receptacles  for  objects  of  art  than  for  ordinary  occupancy. 


Ch.  LIY]  Dreams  of  Bric-a-brac  889 

Each  has  a  few  bits  of  exquisite  furniture,  including  cab- 
inets, but  little  other  furniture  besides  hangings  and  orna- 
ments. These  all  surpass  anything  I  have  ever  seen.  The 
rooms  vary  a  great  deal  in  their  historic  and  geographic 
sources,  but  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  are  always  in  strict  har- 
mony with  those  and  in  themselves.  I  do  not  recall  any- 
thing classic  or  ante-classic,  or  even  "  Empire,"  though  some 
go  back  to  Louis  XV.  The  sources  are  China,  Japan,  post- 
classic  Europe  (France  preponderating),  and  the  English 
inspirations  (partly  imported,  as  we  know)  that  we  associate 
with  colonial  America.  None  of  the  exquisite  Greek  furni- 
ture and  decoration,  though  I  admire  it  profoundly. 

In  waking  life  I  am  rather  given  to  pronounced  colors. 
But  the  coloring  of  these  dream-rooms  is  always  subdued, 
BO  subdued  that  if  while  awake  I  should  try  to  work  in  such 
colors,  the  result  would  be  simply  dead.  But  in  my  dreams 
it  is  inspiring.  Those  who  collect  accounts  of  dreams  say 
that  they  generally  lack  color — are  like  engravings  in  black 
and  white.  Mine  are  wondrous  harmonies  of  color.  My 
dream-walls  are  nearly  always  covered  with  silk  or  satin  hang- 
ings, sometimes  perhaps  velvet,  and  every  article  of  furniture 
or  bric-a-brac  in  one  of  the  rooms  is  in  absolute  harmony 
with  its  general  color  scheme.  My  most  definite  recollection 
is  of  one  in  a  pinkish  grey,  and  I  think  it  was  in  it  that  I 
saw  two  marvelous  cloisonne^  vases,  which  are  the  only  things 
I  distinctly  remember.  The  other  articles  in  the  rooms — 
carvings,  lacquers,  enamels,  ceramics — have  faded  away,  but 
not  so  my  conviction,  with  them  before  me,  that  I  had  never 
seen  them  approached  elsewhere.  Whose  Ideas  are  they? 
Certainly  not  mine. 

I  wander  through  these  rooms  with  great  delight,  going 
perhaps  from  a  grey  one  into  one  all  black  and  gold,  or 
into  a  silver  and  blue  one — always  a  very  subdued  blue — or 
into  one  in  faint  pink,  or  buff.  It  may  be  Chinese  or  Japa- 
nese or  Louis  Quinze  or  Colonial.  I  always  wonder  what 
the  next  is  to  be.  How  does  this  consist  with  the  notion 
that  they  were  made  by  me? 

At  least  two  of  these  dreams  have  been  in  great  shops 
of  Oriental  goods,  beside  which  nearly  all  I  have  seen  in 
actual  ( ?)  shops  were  coarse  and  commonplace.  One  of  the 


890  The  Dream  Life  [Bk.  Ill 

shops  seemed  to  be  in  Boston.  In  the  center  was  a  circular 
revolving  fortification  with  guns  on  top,  and  manned  by 
splendidly  dressed  automata.  A  visitor  in  this  shop  was  a 
woman  of  great  beauty,  apparently  a  European  of  rank,  with 
whom  I  had  a  very  delicate  piquante  but  dignified  flirtation, 
if  a  flirtation  can  ever  be  dignified.  I  got  little  more  than 
a  word,  or  gesture  as  she  left  that  meant  au  revoir.  I  sup- 
pose I  made  her  too,  with  all  her  nuances — I  who  have  been 
accused  of  not  having  a  nuance  in  my  composition ! 

In  one  of  these  dreams  I(?)  gradually  converted  a  room 
in  a  farmhouse  into  a  great  baronial  hall — a  very  cheerful 
one,  though  very  impressive,  of  splendid  architecture;  and 
while  I  was  looking  around  it  with  great  delight,  in  came 
a  lot  of  jolly  fellows  in  beautiful  bronze  armor  covered  with 
raised  arabesques,  and  executed  a  dance.  All  my  work,  of 
course ! 

Here  is  one  of  a  vastly  different  order. 

Some  apparently  plain  empty  brick  commercial  buildings, 
whose  approximate  counterparts  I  seem  to  have  seen  some- 
where about  town  or  about  some  other  town,  I  dreamed  to 
be  really  not  unoccupied,  but  secretly  devoted  to  the  display, 
to  a  select  few  in  advance  of  current  non-Greek  and  Puri- 
tanical prejudices,  of  the  human  form  divine,  especially  in 
its  feminine  manifestations.  The  prejudices  that  require 
costume  of  a  sort  were,  however,  more  rigidly  respected  than 
sometimes  I  have  lately  seen  them  on  the  stage,  and  though 
!  much  of  this  costume  consisted  of  "  tights,"  something  in 
the  nature  of  robes  was  always  provided,  though  not  more 
than  enough  to  emphasize  what  exhibition  of  Nature's  lines 
there  was.  The  costuming,  the  tableaux,  and  the  panto- 
mimes were  far  ahead  of  any  similar  art  I  have  ever  seen: 
they  far  surpassed  "  Sumurun,"  for  instance,  my  recent 
sight  of  which  I  suppose  had  something  to  do  with  the  dreams, 
as  undoubtedly  had  recent  newspaper  accounts  of  an  artistic 
exhibition  in  Vienna  or  Berlin  (I  forget  which)  that  was 
less  conservative — in  fact  not  conservative  at  all  regarding 
costume. 

Now  "  Sumurun  "  was  the  work  of  one  of  the  most  accom- 
plished masters  in  the  world.  Yet  I  am  called  upon  to  be- 
lieve that,  without  any  training  or  effort  whatever,  I  sur- 


Ch.  LIV]  Dramatic  Dreams  891 

passed  him !  I  find  it  easier  to  believe,  not  solely  because  I 
want  to,  but  because  to  such  judicial  capacities  as  I  can 
summon  up,  it  seems  more  rational  to  believe,  that  the  work 
was  done  by  some  power  greater  than  I. 

A  few  days  later  than  the  foregoing  dream  I  had  one  of 
still  a  new  variety — pantomimes  and  masquerade  balls,  with 
burlesques  of  many  kinds.  I  cannot  remember  details,  but  the 
tricks  and  costumes  were  far  superior  to  any  I  could  devise, 
or  any  I  ever  saw,  even  in  the  old  Ravel  days  at  Niblo's. 
Of  course  it  was  all  my  work — I  who  take  very  little  interest 
in  the  present-day  stage,  and  balls!  I  enjoyed  them  that 
night,  though. 

That  I  myself  should  have  done  things  so  far  beyond  me 
in  architecture  and  bric-a-brac  is  preposterous  enough,  and 
when  it  comes  to  my  having  done  them  in  these  new  de- 
partments, the  theory,  in  spite  of  all  the  conceit  I  may  have, 
is  geometrically  harder  to  believe  than  that  they  were  done 
by  an  outside  power.  That  I  am  fit  to  be  its  vehicle  satisfies 
all  the  demands  of  the  aforesaid  conceit. 

People  talk  of  dreams  as  at  best  mere  jumbles  of  frag- 
ments of  memory.  Were  my  beautiful  buildings,  streets, 
rooms,  objects  of  art,  armor,  ordered  dance,  mere  jumbles? 
Their  orderly  arrangement,  as  well  as  their  beauty,  have  not 
been  equaled  in  my  waking  experience. 

It  is  tantalizing  to  write  of  these  things  from  faded 
memories.  And  of  course  you  will  be  skeptical  as  to  their 
having  really  deserved  the  adjectives  I  cannot  help  lavishing 
on  them.  But  I  assure  you  that,  although  I  am  not  in  my 
waking  hours  devoted  to  bric-a-brac,  farther  than  wanting 
decently  good  though  not  elaborate  or  expensive  surroundings, 
no  visible  thing  of  man's  creation,  except  the  higher  form  of 
art  in  a  few  paintings,  has  given  me  the  pleasure  that  came 
from  those  dreams. 

About  dreams,  we  all  know  little  enough,  but  the  more  I 
have  read  regarding  them,  the  more  I  am  impressed  with  how 
little.  For  instance,  almost  every  writer  takes  pains  to  say 
that  dreams  almost  entirely  lack  color,  and  the  scenery  in  them 
is  likened  to  engravings.  Dr.  Bucke,  if  I  remember  rightly, 


892  The  Dream  Life  [Bk.  Ill 

uses  that  fact(  ?)  in  demonstration  of  the  late  evolution  of  the 
color  sense.  Now  my  dreams  have  always  had  just  as  much 
color  as  my  waking  life,  and  when  I  dream  works  of  art,  vastly 
hetter  arranged;  and  my  sensibility  to  color  in  waking  life 
seems  entirely  normal. 

In  spite  of  my  keenest  waking  art-susceptibility  being  re- 
stricted to  pictures  and  music,  I  never  had  any  dreams  of 
very  great  music,  or  more  than  one  dream  of  pictures,  and 
they,  while  good,  were  not  extraordinary.  But  I  could  no 
more  myself  have  made  them,  not  to  speak  of  the  other 
things,  than  I  could  knock  the  peak  off  the  Matterhorn. 
Pardon  my  repeating  my  belief  that  the  other  things  were  the 
work  of  intelligence  outside  of  mine,  and  superior  to  any  on 
earth. 

The  writings  of  Fechner,  Du  Prel,  Myers,  and  other  wise 
men,  pay  me  the  undeserved  compliment  of  saying  that 
those  dreams  were  created  by  a  submerged  portion  of  my 
own  wits.  Then  why  has  not  the  faculty  ever  come  to  the  sur- 
face when  I  am  awake?  I  never,  waking,  did  an  artistic 
thing  worthy  of  notice.  When  I  plan  a  building,  I  have 
to  go  to  somebody  else  to  make  it  fit  to  look  at.  I  can  write 
things  that  a  few  people  read,  and  during  nearly  all  my  long 
life  I  have  made  noises  on  various  musical  instruments,  in- 
cluding my  own  larynx,  that  did  not  always  drive  people 
with  ordinary  taste  from  the  room ;  but  never  in  my  dreams 
have  I  seen  or  heard  anything  extraordinary  in  the  arts 
where  I  have  some  trifling  capacity;  while  in  some  arts  where 
I  have  no  capacity  at  all,  I  have  from  childhood  seen  things 
more  beautiful  than  any  human  being  has  ever  made. 

Dr.  Bucke  (op.  cit.)  would  make  the  absence  of  music  in- 
significant, because,  he  says,  there  is  no  music  in  the  dream 
life,  and  uses  that  as  a  corollary  of  the  very  late  development 
of  music.  There  again  my  experience  differs.  I  have  dreamed 
music  several  times  (though  not  nearly  as  good  as  my(?) 
architecture  and  bric-a-brac,  which  latter  fact  goes  to  support 
his  thesis),  and  Mr.  Kelley  tells  me  that  many  of  his  themes 
have  come  to  him  in  dreams. 

And  how  about  Tartini,  and  Rousseau  and  nearly  everybody 


Ch.  LIV]  Cause  of  Dreams  External  893 

else  who  has  dreamed  of  the  heavenly  choruses  in  articido, 
and  got  back  ? 

The  notion  that  I  made  in  my  dreams  the  beautiful  things 
so  far  beyond. my  capacity — some  of  them  beyond  anybody's 
— seems  ridiculous.  Well,  if  I  didn't,  who  did  ?  Perhaps  they 
"  just  growed,"  like  Topsy.  But  if  it  hadn't  been  for  Mrs. 
Stowe,  Topsy  wouldn't  have  growed,  and  if  it  hadn't  been  for  a 
power  outside  of  Mrs.  Stowe,  Mrs.  Stowe  wouldn't  have 
growed ;  and  I  believe  that  if  it  hadn't  been  for  a  power  outside 
of  those  that  constitute  "  me,"  as  ordinarily  considered,  those 
dreams  wouldn't  have  growed.  "  As  ordinarily  considered !  " 
But  as  more  deeply  considered,  is  it  not  simplest  to  suppose 
that  the  World  Soul  flows  through  each  of  us,  and  brought 
Mrs.  Stowe  Topsy,  and  brought  me  my  dreams  ?  This  is  only 
the  inspiration  that  artists  always  claim. 

A  dream  is  a  work  of  genius,  and  in  many  respects,  per- 
haps  most,  especially  in  vividness  of  imagination,  the  best 
example  we  have;  and  since  I  first  wrote  this  paragraph,  I 
have  come  across  a  perfect  nest  of  statements  from  various 
eminent  writers  to  similar  effect — generally  in  the  converse, 
however — that  every  work  of  genius  is  a  dream.  Whose 
genius?  We  are  all  geniuses  that  far.  Of  all  works  of 
genius,  a  dream  is  the  most  spontaneous,  constructed  with  the 
least  effort  from  fewest  materials,  the  least  restrained,  and 
often  immeasurably  surpassing  all  works  of  waking  genius 
in  the  same  department.  A  genius  gets  a  trifling  hint,  and 
being  inspired  by  the  gods  (anthropomorphic  for  flowed 
in  upon  by  the  cosmic  soul  ?)  builds  out  of  the  hint  a  poem 
or  a  drama  or  a  symphony.  You  and  I  build  dreams  sur- 
passing the  poem  or  the  drama  or  the  symphony,  but  our 
friends  Dryasdust  and  Myopia  inquire  into  our  experiences, 
and  sometimes  find  a  little  hint  on  which  a  dream  was 
built,  and  then  all  dreams  are  demonstrated  things  unworthy 
of  serious  consideration.  Is  it  not  a  more  rational  view 
that  the  fact  that  the  soul  can  in  the  dream  state  elaborate 
so  much  from  so  little,  indicates  it  to  be  then  already  in  a  life 
which  has  no  limits? 

The  frequent  contempt  for  dreams  is  partly  because  we 
cannot  all  remember  them  vividly  enough  even  to  describe 


804  The  Dream  Life  [Bk.  Ill 

their  general  nature,  much  less  to  write  or  draw  or  paint 
them  out,  though  Coleridge  and  Stevenson  could  write  them 
out.  I  should  have  to  draw  and  paint  mine — I  who  can- 
not draw  and  paint  as  well  as  the  poorest  amateur!  And 
yet  forsooth  it  was  I  who  made  the  originals !  Could  any 
proposition  be  more  absurd,  unless  the  one  that  there  is 
another  I,  whom  no  mortal  being  ever  knew,  whom  I  don't 
know  myself,  and  yet  who  is  as  much  I  as  the  one  we  know, 
and  who  is  a  transcendent  genius? 

Even  although  on  nights  when  I  have  those  dreams  my 
sleep  is  somewhat  interrupted,  and  I  need  a  great  deal,  I  find 
myself,  after  not  over  five  or  six  hours  of  it  in  the  aggregate, 
without  the  slightest  indication,  even  in  response  to  a 
rough  physiological  test,  of  having  used  up  any  brain 
tissue  in  constructing  the  dream,  but  feeling  rather  as  if  I 
had  been  supplied  with  more  than  I  took  to  bed:  I  usually 
get  up  bright  and  cheerful,  without  the  slightest  sense  of 
fatigue,  after  nights  in  which  I  experience  architecture  and 
bric-a-brac  that  in  quantity  and  quality  represent  in  one 
night  dozens  of  lifetimes  of  work  for  great  artists,  and  I 
am  no  artist  at  all.  Plainly,  I  don't  do  that  work.  Who  does  ? 

Now,  having  amiably  waded  through  some  of  my  ex- 
perience by  way  of  introduction,  will  you,  as  in  the  other 
departments,  turn  to  the  experience  of  others? 

Dreams  have  not  been  really  studied  much  until  very 
lately,  though  there  has  been  an  enormous  amount  of  quack 
writing  about  them  ever  since  writing  was  invented.  The 
attention  of  the  S.  P.  E.  has  been,  not  unnaturally,  more 
given  to  the  dreams  of  hypnosis  and  somnambulism  than  to 
those  of  ordinary  sleep — partly  because,  especially  in  hypno- 
sis, they  can  be  better  observed.  Among  the  best  books  avail- 
able in  English  are  the  translation  of  Du  Prel,  Havelock  Ellis^s 
The  World  of  Dreams,  and,  many  think,  Freud's  Interpreta- 
tion of  Dreams.  The  latest  work  I  know  is  in  two  good 
articles  by  Mr.  H.  Addington  Bruce  in  the  Outlook  for  August 
19  and  December  9,  1911. 

It  will  probably  be  just  as  well  to  consider  all  dreams  pell- 
mell.  The  gradation  from  ordinary  to  somnambulic  is  too 
gradual  for  the  division  to  be  worth  noticing,  and  though 


Ch.  LIV]      Dreams  Seldom  Auto-Suggestions  895 

there  is  apparently  a  distinct  division  between  the  sources 
of  dreams  hypnotically  induced  and  others,  their  phenomena 
differ  only  in  being  subject  to  suggestion  from  the  hypno- 
tizer. 

The  question  is  not  met  by  insisting  that,  despite  all 
appearance  to  the  contrary,  dreams  are  auto-suggestions. 
Trances  may  be  auto-suggested,  but  there  is  no  proof  that 
their  dreams  are.  Some  may  be,  but  certainly  not  all. 

Let  me  remind  you  of  what  I  suggested  in  explanation 
of  Mrs.  Piper's  trances — that  there  are  hosts  of  cases  where 
people  who  "  imagine  things  "  produce  in  themselves  many 
of  the  phenomena  produced  by  hypnotists,  including  sleep, 
insensibility,  and  waking  hallucination.  Some  hysterical 
people  can  "see"  pretty  much  anything  they  please,  and 
perhaps  more  things  that  they  don't  please — their  very  dreads 
giving  them  visions  of  the  things  dreaded.  But  there  are 
very  few  people  who  can  dream  about  what  they  want  to. 

Many  dreams,  instead  of  being  self-induced,  are  direct 
responses  to  touches,  sounds,  and  even  sights:  for  a  light 
brought  near  a  sleeper's  eyes  has  set  the  alarm  bells  ringing, 
and  called  out  the  fire  departments;  so  has  the  clashing  to- 
gether of  shovel  and  tongs;  and  a  few  drops  of  water  on 
the  face  has  produced  a  dream  of  showers,  with  umbrellas, 
goloshes,  raincoats,  and  scamperings,  and  the  usual  humorous 
happenings.  The  sleepers  have  actually  been  awakened  by 
the  various  contacts  causing  the  dreams,  and  yet  have  re- 
ported long  dreams.  Hence  the  proof  of  the  superiority  of 
the  dream  state  to  time. 

Among  dreams  thus  suggested,  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
is  given  in  full  in  nearly  all  the  books,  and  in  Mr.  Bruce's 
article.  It  is  one  of  many  illustrations  of  a  difference  be- 
tween our  standards  and  the  wider  sweep  of  things.  So 
commonplace  an  event  as  the  falling  of  a  curtain  rod  upon 
Maury's  neck  produces  a  great  historic  pageant  of  judicial 
procedure,  popular  manifestations,  and  public  execution  by 
guillotine.  It  is  no  less  a  great  historic  pageant  because 
only  one  man  saw  it,  and  he  in  his  sleep;  and  it  could 
have  been  no  more  of  one  if  it  had  been  seen  by  a  million, 
though  it  might  then  have  passed  into  history,  with  im- 
portant results,  as  have  the  events  on  which  it  was  based. 


896  The  Dream  Life  [Bk.  Ill 

Here  again  these  events  taking  place,  with  hundreds  of  par- 
ticipants, and  witnessed  by  only  one  man  in  his  sleep,  are 
a  comment  on  our  scale  of  values.  They  suggest  what  has 
been  said  before  and  illustrated  by  the  Parthenon  and  Mona 
Lisa.  What  the  dreamer  saw  was,  in  a  sense,  one  copy  of 
fragments  of  the  "  Idea "  which,  in  its  highest  rendering, 
was  the  French  Revolution.  We  haven't  words  clearly  to 
express  this  thought,  and  yet  to  me  it  seems  a  very  clear 
thought,  and  one  opening  up  wide  vistas.  I  hope  I  am 
not  boring  you  by  repeating  it  in  so  many  ways.  You  will 
get  it  none  too  clearly,  assuming  it  to  be  worth  getting  at  all. 

Eegarding  this  famous  dream,  Ellis  (p.  213,  note)  says 
that  it  (as  Egger  has  pointed  out)  was  probably  not  written 
down  until  thirteen  years  later  [and  therefore]  is  not  entitled 
to  serious  consideration.  That  remark  can  hardly  apply  to 
its  main  features.  It  is  well  to  draw  the  line  carefully, 
but  when  a  doubtful  account  agrees  with  an  enormous  pre- 
ponderance of  evidence,  there  is  such  a  thing  as  drawing  the 
line  too  carefully. 

The  same  superiority  to  time  is  true  in  trance  approximat- 
ing death.  Admiral  Beaufort  falls  overboard,  and  when  on 
the  verge  of  death,  is  pulled  out.  The  whole  immersion  is 
but  two  minutes,  but  in  the  last  seconds  of  that  time  he  ex- 
periences a  panoramic  review  of  his  whole  life  in  minute 
detail,  with  hosts  of  forgotten  events  and  reflections  on  their 
causes,  consequences,  and  moral  relations.  Similar  facts  are 
true  of  an  anonymous  lady,  vouched  for  by  Fechner,  and 
in  hosts  of  other  recorded  instances. 

As  nerve  processes  take  time,  long  dreams  proved  to  have 
been  instantaneous  must  have  been  independent  of  time. 
Does  this  mean  that  the  subliminal  self  is  superior  to  time 
or,  in  perhaps  better  phrase,  that  a  dream  is  an  inflow  of 
the  world  soul,  knowing  all  things,  to  which  present,  past, 
and  future  are  the  same? 

As  the  events  of  a  long  dream  often  precede  the  cause  of 
them,  is  the  subliminal  self  superior  to  the  law  of  cause 
and  effect — is  it  the  world-soul? 

As  the  subliminal  self  is  thus  demonstrated  superior  to  the 
slowness  of  nerve  function,  is  its  association  with  nerve  neces- 
sarily permanent?  Can  soul  exist  only  in  connection  with 


Ch.  LIV]  Inspiration  897 

body,  or  is  there  a  world-soul  which  temporarily  animates  the 
body  while  the  body  lasts,  and  through  it  develops  a  new 
eternal  individuality  which  is  part  of  itself?  Is  there  an 
inflow  from  the  Power  greater  than  ourselves,  but  including 
ourselves,  which  not  only  as  Motion  does,  our  breathing, 
circulating,  and  secreting,  but  as  Mind  does  our  dreaming, 
feeling,  and  thinking  ?  I  hope  you're  not  tired  of  the  question. 

After  citing  many  cases  which  provoke  these  reflections  Du 
Prel  (Philosophy  of  Mysticism,  I,  93)  observes  what  has  often 
been  observed  in  some  shape  or  other :  "  Man  has  a  double  con- 
sciousness, the  empirical  with  its  physiological  measure  of  time, 
and  a  transcendental  with  another  measure  of  time  peculiar 
to  itself."  And  he  declares  that  the  transcendental  emerges  in 
our  dreams.  But  of  course  he  lays  it  all  up  to  man,  rather 
than  go  back  on  the  late-nineteenth-century  repugnance  from 
anything  that  could  be  identified  with  the  old-fashioned  God. 

The  same  independence  of  limiting  conditions  that  marks 
dreaming  and  drowning  (or  dying?)  seems  to  mark  the 
inspirations  of  genius.  Du  Prel  quotes  this  from  Mozart: 

(Op.  cit.,  I,  105-6) :  "  Mozart  has  made  the  following  interest- 
ing statement  about  his  own  productive  faculty:  'When  I  am 
all  right  and  in  good  spirits,  either  in  a  carriage  or  walking,  and 
at  night  when  I  cannot  sleep,  thoughts  come  streaming  in  and 
at  their  best.  Whence  and  how  I  know  not — I  cannot  make 
out.  The  things  which  occur  to  me  I  keep  in  my  head,  and 
hum  them  also  to  myself — at  least,  so  others  have  told  me.  If 
I  stick  to  it,  there  soon  come  one  after  another  useful  crumbs 
for  the  pie,  according  to  counterpoint,  harmony  of  the  different 
instruments,  etc.  This  now  inflames  my  soul,  that  is,  if  I  am 
not  disturbed.  Then  it  keeps  on  growing,  and  I  keep  on  ex- 
panding it  and  making  it  more  distinct,  and  the  thing,  however 
long  it  may  be,  becomes,  indeed,  almost  finished  in  my  head,  so 
that  I  can  afterwards  survey  it  in  spirit  like  a  beautiful  picture 
or  a  fine  person,  and  also  hear  it  in  imagination — not  indeed 
successively,  as  by-and-by  it  must  come  out,  but  as  all  together. 
That  is  a  delight!  All  the  invention  and  construction  go  on  in 
me  as  in  a  fine,  strong  dream.  But  the  overhearing  it  all  at  once 
is  still  the  best.'  Mozart  did  not  foresee  how  interesting  would 
be  his  involuntary  comparison  with  dreaming. . . .  One  is  in- 
voluntarily reminded  of  Luther's  forcible  saying :  '  God  sees  time 
not  lengthwise,  but  crosswise;  all  is  in  a  heap  before  him...' 
with  the  intuitive  cognition  of  genius  . . .  that,  which  to  the  man 
of  ordinary  reflection  appears  as  a  temporal  succession,  is  changed 
into  a  juxtaposition  to  bo  surveyed  at  a  glance." 


898  The  Dream  Life  [Bk.  Ill 

Lombroso  gives  the  following  (After  Death,  'What?,  320f.) : 

"  It  is  well  known  that  in  his  dreams  Goethe  solved  many 
weighty  scientific  problems  and  put  into  words  many  most  beau- 
tiful verses.  So  also  La  Fontaine  (The  Fable  of  Pleasures)  and 
Coleridge  and  Voltaire.  Bernard  Palissy  had  in  a  dream  the 
inspiration  for  one  of  his  most  beautiful  ceramic  pieces 

"  Holde  composed  while  in  a  dream  La  Phantasie,  which  re- 
flects in  its  harmony  its  origin;  and  Nodier  created  Lydia,  and 
at  the  same  time  a  whole  theory  on  the  future  of  dreaming. 
Condillac  in  dream  finished  a  lecture  interrupted  the  evening 
before.  Kruger,  Corda,  and  Maignan  solved  in  dreams  mathe- 
matical problems  and  theorems.  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  in 
his  Chapters  on  Dreams,  confesses  that  portions  of  his  most 
original  novels  were  composed  in  the  dreaming  state.  Tartini 
had  while  dreaming  one  of  his  most  portentous  musical  inspira- 
tions. It  was  April  (he  says),  and  through  the  half -open  win- 
dow of  his  little  room  there  was  blowing  a  smart  breeze,  when 
all  at  once  his  eyelids  drooped,  then  closed,  and  it  seemed  to 
him  that  he  saw  a  spectral  form  approaching  him.  It  is 
Beelzebub  in  person.  He  holds  a  magic  violin  in  his  hands,  and 
the  sonata  begins.  It  is  a  divine  adagio,  melancholy-sweet,  a 
lament,  a  dizzy  succession  of  rapid  and  intense  notes.  Tartini 
rouses  himself,  leaps  out  of  bed,  seizes  his  violin,  and  repro- 
duces on  the  magical  instrument  all  that  he  had  heard  played  in 
his  sleep.  He  names  it  the  Sonata  del  Diavolo,  one  of  the  best 
of  his  works." 

Kegarding  this,  Ellis  says,  in  effect,  that  Tartini  didn't 
really  reproduce  the  dream,  but  came  as  near  it  as  he  could. 
That  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  question  of  the  source  of 
the  dream. 

"  Giovanni  Dupre  [Lombroso  continues]  got  in  a  dream  the 
conception  of  his  very  beautiful  Pieta.  One  sultry  summer  day 
Dupre  was  lying  on  a  divan  thinking  hard  on  what  kind  of 
pose  he  should  choose  for  the  Christ.  He  fell  asleep,  and  in 
dream  he  saw  the  entire  group  at  last  complete,  with  Christ  in 
the  very  pose  he  had  been  aspiring  to  conceive,  but  which  his 
mind  had  not  succeeded  in  completely  realizing." 

It  is  a  quite  frequent  experience  that  a  person  perplexed 
by  a  problem  at  night  finds  it  solved  on  waking  in  the  morn- 
ing. Efforts  to  remember,  which  are  unsuccessful  before 
going  to  sleep,  on  waking  are  often  found  accomplished. 
The  speculation  that  the  feat  is  performed  by  a  stratum  of 


Ch.  LIY]  Hypnotism  and  Memory  899 

mind  deeper  than  the  waking  one,  I  have  already  noted.  An- 
other theory,  which  seems  inevitably  correct  in  some  cases, 
is  that  the  faculties  are  refreshed  by  sleep,  and  by  the  flow 
of  the  blood  to  the  brain  while  the  body  is  horizontal  after 
waking  (during  sleep  the  brain  ordinarily  has  less  blood 
than  during  waking) ;  and  that  soon  after  waking  the  prob- 
lem is  solved.  The  misty  glimpse  of  a  possible  hypnotic 
influence  from  the  cosmic  soul  may  perhaps  be  cleared  up  a 
little  by  the  following  case  of  recovered  memory  given  by 
Dr.  Joire  in  the  Revue  de  I'Hypnotisme  for  August,  1909, 
and  condensed  in  the  Annals  of  Psychical  Science  for  Jan- 
uary-March, 1910.  Some  months  before  an  inventor  had  lost 
a  drawing,  and  could  not  reproduce  it.  He  was  hypnotized, 
and  it  was  suggested  to  him  somewhat  in  detail  that  his 
memory  was  passing  backward  over  the  intervening  time 
until  he  was  told  that  he  was  reproducing  the  drawing. 

" '  Now  you  will  live  over  again  this  period  of  your  life  with 
the  greatest  accuracy.  You  are  aware  of  the  defects  in  existing 
arc  lamps,  you  wish  to  abolish  them;  you  have  thought  of  a 
new  device,  you  begin  to  see  the  details  clearly,  you  are  going 
to  draw  a  sketch  on  one  of  these  cards,  you  take  your  pen  and 
you  draw ! ' 

"  All  this  time  Mr.  F.'s  face  expressed  profound  concentra- 
tion ;  he  suddenly  took  his  pen  and  commenced  a  design,  paused, 
seemed  to  make  mental  calculations,  then  went  on  adding  letters 
and  signs,  but  after  a  few  attempts  he  threw  it  on  the  ground 
with  a  look  of  great  annoyance,  and  a  second  design  which  he 
commenced  after  some  reflection  was  discarded  in  the  same  way. 

"  A  longer  pause  followed ;  then  his  hand  wrote  slowly  and 
automatically :  '  It  is  the  poles  of  the  induction  currents  which 
must  be  reversed.  I  must  have  two  successive  contacts  reversed 
each  time.' 

"  His  expression  became  calm ;  he  put  the  sheet  gently  on 
one  side  and  took  another,  on  which  he  began  to  draw  a  com- 
plicated design  without  pause  or  hesitation;  when  finished,  he 
examined  it  carefully,  and  said  in  a  low  voice :  '  There,  I've 
hit  on  it  at  last,'  and  at  once  passed  into  a  state  of  profound 
sleep. 

"  When  I  awoke  him  in  the  customary  manner  he  stared  at 
the  sketch  with  the  greatest  surprise.  '  Why,  that  is  my  de- 
sign which  I  have  been  seeking  for  six  months!  Did  I  do  that? 
How  is  it  possible?  It  is  incomprehensible!'  He  had  no 
recollection  of  having  made  the  other  two,  which  were  quite 
useless,  but  when  he  saw  what  he  had  written  on  the  third  card, 


900  The  Dream  Life  [Bk.  Ill 

he  exclaimed :  '  Why,  I  must  have  written  that,  too !  It  is  just 
the  crux  of  the  whole  thing,  and  the  solution  is  here,  in  my 
sketch ! ' . . .  He  remembered  distinctly  seeing  the  days,  weeks, 
and  months  pass  before  his  mental  vision  in  reverse  order.  For 
instance,  in  the  case  of  a  journey  to  Lille,  which  had  taken 
place  in  August,  he  first  saw  his  return,  then  the  journey,  then 
his  stay  at  the  seaside,  and  so  on,  including  many  minute 
details  which  had  completely  escaped  his  memory,  such  as  a 
bicycle  on  the  railway  platform,  a  cloak  left  on  a  seat,  and 
similar  facts. . . .  He  remembers  nothing  of  what  occurred  when 
he  was  working  at  the  problem,  probably  because  the  required 
knowledge  lay  in  a  much  deeper  stratum  of  consciousness,  and 
that,  in  order  to  regain  it,  he  passed  into  a  more  profound 
somnambulism." 

Mr.  Bruce's  articles  are  the  latest  summary  on  Dreams 
that  I  know  of,  and  a  very  intelligent  one:  so  I  will  use 
an  outline  of  those  articles  as  a  thread  on  which  to  string 
some  comments  on  the  present  position  of  science  on  the 
general  subject. 

He  begins  his  explanations  with  the  calm  statement  (Out- 
look for  1911,  p.  868)  :  "  Modern  science  can  give  a  satis- 
factory explanation  for  all  exceptional  dreams  on  purely 
naturalistic  grounds,"  and  then  proceeds  to  show  how.  He 
first  successfully  applies  "  modern  science "  to  some  dreams 
indicating  the  whereabouts  of  lost  articles  by  alleging  sub- 
conscious memories  of  dropping  or  mislaying  of  the  articles 
being  revived  in  the  dreams.  He  thus  condenses  a  good 
illustration  of  subconscious  memories  from  Miss  Goodrich- 
Freer's  experiences  in  crystal-gazing : 

"I  saw  in  the  crystal  a  pool  of  blood  (as  it  seemed  to  me) 
lying  on  the  pavement  at  the  corner  of  a  terrace  close  to  my 
door.  This  suggested  nothing  to  me.  Then  I  remembered  that 
I  had  passed  over  that  spot  in  the  course  of  a  walk  of  a  few 
hundred  yards  home  from  the  circulating  library;  and  that,  the 
street  being  empty,  I  had  been  looking  into  the  books  as  I 
walked.  Afterwards  I  found  that  my  boots  and  the  bottom  of 
my  dress  were  stained  with  red  paint,  which  I  must  have 
walked  through  unobservingly." 

He  also  gives  the  classic  case  that  I  have  given  of  the 
death  advertisement  in  Miss  Goodrich-Freer's  crystal,  and 
adds  that  if,  instead  of  the  crystal  announcement, 

"  Miss  Goodrich-Freer  had  had  a  dream  in  which  the  dead 
friend  appeared  to  her  and  solemnly  said,  '  I  have  had  a  long 


Ch.  LIV]  Questionable  Theories  901 

period  of  suffering,  but  it  is  over  now.'  And  suppose  that  the 
next  day  word  had  been  received  of  the  friend's  death,  Miss 
Goodrich-Freer  meanwhile  having  completely  forgotten  that  she 
had  glanced  at  the  '  Times.'  Would  this  not  have  been  on  a 
par  with  many  of  the  dreams  that  bring  amazement  and  con- 
sternation to  their  dreamers  ?  " 

But  my  constructive  dreams  don't  happen  to  be  of  that 
kind.  Mr.  Bruce  goes  on,  however,  to  account  for  construc- 
tive dreams,  and  disposes  of  them  thus: 

"Always,  it  is  to  be  noted,  the  creative  dreams  are  of  a 
kind  appropriate  to  the  waking  thoughts  and  activities  of  the 
dreamer.  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  a  writer  of  stories,  gets  the 
plots  of  stories  in  dream.  He  does  not,  like  Tartini,  get  a 
'  Devil's  Sonata,'  nor  yet  the  conception  for  a  valuable  innova- 
tion in  commercial  architecture,  such  as  was  dreamed  by  the 
Pacific  Coast  architect. . . .  Whatever  chiefly  concerns  a  man's 
conscious  thoughts  will  be  the  chief  concern  of  his  subconscious 
thinking,  awake  or  asleep." 

The  same  paradox  has  often  been  remarked,  but  it  is,  as 
I  have  shown,  the  exact  opposite  of  much  of  my  constructive 
sleeping  experience,  and  I  seldom  dream  of  "what  chiefly 
concerns  [my]  conscious  thoughts."  I  have  also  seen  it 
denied,  in  some  good  place,  that  even  the  majority  do. 

Eegarding  dreams  which  solve  problems,  he  seems  to  me 
to  give  away  the  case  in  the  words  I  italicize  below.  Speak- 
ing of  a  dreamer  who  had  been  enabled  to  solve  a  problem 
he  uses  words  which  would  apply  to  him  as  representing  a 
class. 

"  Consciously  he  had  formulated  and  rejected  many  tentative 
interpretations.  All  the  while,  his  tireless  poring  over  the 
problem  was  adding  to  the  store  of  his  subconscious  as  well  as 
conscious  percepts  relating  to  it.  Subconsciously  he  would  be 
ever  approaching  closer  to  the  solution  which,  in  his  case,  was 
finally  attained  while  he  slept,  being  presented  to  him,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  recognized  tendency  of  the  sleeping  conscious- 
ness to  dramatize  its  material,  in  the  form  of  a  weird  dream- 
Btory." 

"  The  store  of  his  subconscious  percepts  "  seems  to  me  pure 
assumption,  a  contradiction  in  terms,  and  directly  descended 
from  the  question-begging  term  the  subliminal  self.  The 
facts  I  have  italicized  do  not  explain  the  case  any  more  than 
the  phrase  subliminal  self,  in  its  original  use,  ever  explained 


902  The  Dream  Life  [Bk.  Ill 

anything.  Letting  his  "  subconscious  "  mean  an  inflow  from 
the  cosmic  mind,  suggests  an  explanation. 

Mr.  Bruce  goes  on  to  dispose  of  premonitory  dreams.  I 
give  part  of  his  illustrations. 

He  states  the  unquestionable  fact  that — and  here  I  shall 
take  a  farther  liberty  of  italicizing  a  couple  of  little  words : 

"  Another  and  more  difficult  problem  is  presented  by  well-au- 
thenticated dreams  that  involve  coincidental  action  at  a  distance, 
although  there  is  reason  for  believing  that  many  even  of  these 
have  a  very  simple  explanation. . . .  This  might ...  be  said  of  the 
Brooklyn  lady's  dream  symbolizing  the  death  of  her  son-in-law, 
if  only  we  could  be  sure  that  the  news  of  the  death  was  already 
known  to  other  members  of  her  household,  so  that  she  might 
have  heard  them  talking  about  it." 

Yes,  "  if  only."     Is  this  "  modern  science  "  ? 
But  here  is  some  modern  science  which  Mr.   Bruce   is 
entirely  justified  in  using: 

"Even  so,  it  would  not  be  necessary  to  introduce  a  ghostly 
agency  as  an  explanatory  factor.  For  there  is  the  possibility 
that  the  news  was  conveyed  to  her  mind  from  the  mind  of  her 
sorrowing  daughter  by  telepathy,  or  thought  transference." 

Elsewhere  Mr.  Bruce  says: 

"  Nor  need  we  go  beyond  subconscious  perception  to  explain 
premonitory  dreams.  [True  of  many,  but  not  all.  H.H.]  When 
it  is  a  dream  of  disease  or  death  impending  for  the  dreamer, 
there  is  always  the  possibility  that . . .  disease  had  already  so  far 
progressed  as  to  cause  organic  changes  occasioning  sensations 
too  slight  to  be  appreciated  by  the  waking  consciousness,  but 
sufficient  to  stimulate  the  sleeping  consciousness  to  activity. 
When  the  dream  relates  to  the  illness  of  someone  other  than  the 
dreamer,  it  is  safe  [sometimes:  yes.  H.H.]  to  assume  that, 
consciously  or  subconsciously,  an  inkling  of  the  state  of  that 
other  person's  health  had  been  obtained  by  the  dreamer  before 
the  dream." 

He  would  have  done  well  to  let  in  telepathy  again. 
Among  interesting  cases  Mr.  Bruce  treats  the  following: 

"  A  lady  dreamed  that,  entering  her  drawing-room  after  church, 
she  saw  five  dark  little  spots  on  the  new  carpet,  and  that  these 
turned  out  to  be  holes  burned  into  the  carpet.  The  next  day 
was  Sunday,  and  she  went  to  church  as  usual.  On  her  return 
she  visited  the  drawing-room,  where  she  found  that  a  careless 
housemaid  had  dropped  some  hot  coals  on  the  carpet,  causing 


Cli.  LIV]    Dreams  of  Dead  Hand  and  Burnt  Carpet      903 

five  little  burned  patches.  Akin  to  this  is  Mr.  Frederick  Green- 
wood's dream  of  the  dead  hand. 

" '  One  night,'  says  Mr.  Greenwood,  '  I  dreamed  that,  making 
a  call  on  some  matter  of  business,  I  was  shown  into  a  fine  great 
drawing-room  and  asked  to  wait.  Accordingly  I  went  over  to 
the  fireplace,  in  the  usual  English  way,  preparing  to  wait  there. 
And  there,  after  the  same  fashion,  I  lounged  with  my  arm  upon 
the  mantelpiece ;  but  only  for  a  few  moments.  For,  feeling  that 
my  fingers  had  rested  on  something  strangely  cold,  I  looked, 
and  saw  that  they  lay  on  a  dead  hand:  a  woman's  hand  newly 
cut  from  the  wrist. 

" '  Though  I  woke  in  horror  on  the  instant,  this  dream  was 
quite  forgotten — at  any  rate,  for  the  time — when  I  did  next  day 
make  a  call  on  some  unimportant  matter  of  business,  was 
shown  into  a  pretty  little  room  adorned  with  various  knick- 
knacks,  and  then  was  asked  to  wait.  Glancing  by  chance  toward 
the  mantelpiece  (the  dream  of  the  previous  night  still  for- 
gotten), what  should  I  see  but  the  hand  of  a  mummy,  broken 
from  the  wrist.  It  was  a  very  little  hand,  and  on  it  was  a 
ring  that  would  have  been  a  "  gem  ring  "  if  the  dull  red  stone 
in  it  had  been  genuinely  precious.  Wherefore  I  concluded  that 
it  was  a  woman's  hand.' 

"  Neither  this  dream  nor  that  of  the  burned  holes  in  the  car- 
pet served  any  useful  purpose,  or  any  purpose  whatever.  Yet 
they  pointed  as  directly  and  vividly  to  future  events ...  as  do 
the  numerous  dreams  on  record  predicting  the  illness  or  death 
of  the  dreamer  or  of  one  of  the  dreamer's  friends.  There  is 
reason,  then,  for  inferring  that  the  mechanism  in  all  such  cases 
is  much  the  same.  Either  they  are  all  '  supernatural  dreams ' 
or  there  is  nothing  supernatural  in  any  of  them.  [Isn't  this 
going  a  little  fast?  H.H.]  On  the  other  hand,  they  cannot  be 
dismissed  by  raising  the  cry  of  '  chance  coincidence '  or  by  in- 
sinuating that  possibly  the  tellers  of  the  dreams  did  not  ad- 
here strictly  to  the  truth. 

"  The  element  of  the  marvelous  is  equally  obliterated  from 
such  dreams  as  those  of  the  dead  hand  and  the  holes  burned 
in  the  carpet,  when  we  take  into  consideration,  as  we  are 
bound  to  do,  the  possibilities  of  subconscious  mental  action. 
Mr.  Frederick  Greenwood,  thinking  of  the  business  call  he  had 
to  make  next  day,  would  be  reminded  of  ih^  house  he  was  to 
visit,  and  this  would  readily  serve  to  evoke  in  his  sleeping 
consciousness  a  memory  of  the  mummy's  hand  on  the  mantel- 
piece." 

But  he  did  not  notice  it  on  the  first  visit,  and  it  was 
hardly  a  thing  as  apt  to  escape  notice  as,  for  instance,  words 
often  are  to  be  read  without  their  meaning  being  grasped. 
But  admitting  unconscious  memory,  the  dream  was  not  like 


904  The  Dream  Life  [Bk.  Ill 

the  crystal  gazer's  of  the  thing  as  seen,  but  of  a  natural 
hand.     Was  Mr.  Greenwood  a  sculptor  ?     If  not,  who  restored 
the  hand  ?    The  same  power  that  makes  my  objects  of  art  ? 
Mr.  Bruce  continues: 

"As  to  the  dream  of  the  holes  in  the  carpet,  the  probability 
is  that  they  were  burned  into  the  carpet  the  night  before  the 
dream,  not  the  day  after  it,  and  that  the  dreamer  saw  them, 
'  out  of  the  corner  of  her  eye,'  as  she  passed  the  drawing-room 
on  her  way  to  bed.  Otherwise  her  dream  is  inexplicable  on  any 
hypothesis,  even  that  of  '  spirit  agency.'  It  is  preposterous  to 
imagine  that  '  spirits '  would  trouble  themselves  with  notifying 
anxious  housewives  of  the  imminence  of  trifling  domestic  mis- 
haps." 

Very  good!  But  isn't  Mr.  Brace's  idea  of  "spirits"  a 
little  out  of  date?  They  may  be,  like  "subliminal  self," 
mere  names  for  little  more  than  phenomena  not  yet  explained ; 
but  the  latest  phenomena  attributed  to  them  abound  in  the 
attention  of  alleged  "spirits"  to  trifles — to  the  things,  in 
fact,  big  and  little,  which  made  us  love  them  here. 

Freud  improves  on  DuPrel  with  a  "buried  complex" 
which  Mr.  Bruce  describes  as  follows  (Outlook,  August  19, 
1911).  It  consists  of: 

"the  persistence,  in  the  way  of  subconscious  memories,  of 
long-forgotten  happenings  having  a  profound  emotional  signifi- 
cance— frights,  griefs,  worries,  shocks  of  various  kinds,  secret 

desires,  and  so  forth 

"  The  theory ...  is  that  the  memories  in  question  are  for- 
gotten by  the  upper  consciousness  simply  because  they  are  of  a 
painful  character,  or  of  a  character  otherwise  incompatible  with 
the  best  interests  of  the  one  who  experienced  them.  But,  al- 
though thus  repressed  and  thrust  from  consciousness,  they  are 
far  from  being  blotted  out.  Subconsciously  they  remain  as 
vivid  and  intense  as  when  first  experienced;  and,  in  addition, 
they  perpetually  seek  to  assert  themselves  and  appear  once 
more  in  the  field  of  conscious  memory.  Such  is  the  human 
constitution,  however,  that  they  can  do  this  only  on  condition 
of  being  so  transformed  that  the  upper  consciousness  shall  not 
recognize  them  for  what  they  really  are." 

But  where  do  they  "  remain,"  and  whence  do  they  "  appear 
once  more"?  Does  the  individual  mind  contain  infinity? 
And  why  is  "  the  human  constitution  such  that ...  the  upper 


Ch.  LIV]  Freud's  Theories  905 

consciousness  shall  not  recognize  them  for  what  they  really 
are  "  ?  This  is  too  wholesale,  like  the  remark  a  little  way 
back  about  all  dreams  or  no  dreams  being  supernatural:  the 
upper  consciousness  does  very  often  recognize  them. 

Wouldn't  the  case  be  better  put  as  virtually  all  philosophers 
would  put  it  if  they  carried  to  its  logical  outcome  a  precious 
notion  that  they  all  pick  up  and  admire  and  then  merely 
put  in  their  pockets — the  notion  that  all  experiences  are  stored 
in  a  cosmic  reservoir  from  which  they  tend  to  flow  back, 
but  often,  owing  to  changed  conditions,  get  back  in  changed 
shapes  ? 

Mr.  Bruce  goes  on  to  interpret  Freud.  I  have  read  his 
principal  work,  and  am  content  to  let  Mr.  Bruce  speak  for  me : 

"  One  form  of  transformation,  in  the  case  of  persons  pre- 
disposed by  conditions  of  heredity  and  environment,  is  into  the 

symptoms  of  hysteria In  the  case  of  normal  persons  the 

process  of  transformation  does  not  involve  such  violent  mani- 
festations of  the  underlying  psychic  energy,  which  '  works  itself 
off'  quite  peacefully  by  various  channels,  and  notably  through 
the  medium  of  dreams.  In  truth,  every  dream,  according  to 
the  theory  of  Freud,  is  symbolical,  and  on  close  analysis  will 
be  found  related  to,  and  expressive  of,  some  secret,  subconscious 
emotional  complex.  Besides  which,  Freud  finds  a  strong  '  wish ' 
element  in  all  dreams,  and  has  even  ventured  to  sum  up  his 
theory  of  dreams  in  the  single  formula:  Every  dream  at  bottom 
represents  the  imaginary  fulfilment  of  an  ungratified  wish. 

"Now,  while  I  am  not  prepared  to  indorse  the  Freudian 
hypothesis  in  its  entirety,  and  while  I  am  inclined  to  agree  with 
Morton  Prince,  Boris  Sidis,  and  Havelock  Ellis  in  holding  that 
Freud,  as  regards  both  hysteria  and  dreams,  has  allowed  the 
passion  for  generalization  to  carry  him  to  a  rash  extreme,  I  am 
nevertheless  convinced  that  he  has  furnished  the  necessary  clue 
to  the  solution  of  the  problem  immediately  before  us — the  prob- 
lem of  the  strange  influence  exercised  over  our  dreams  by 
trivial  incidents  of  the  waking  state. 

"During  the  day  I  do  a  hundred  and  one  things;  I  talk  with 
many  people.  Somebody  casually  mentions  to  me  the  name  of 
John  Smith,  and  that  night  I  have  a  vivid  dream  with  John 
Smith  figuring  in  it.  It  is  not  because  I  am  very  much  in- 
terested in  him  that  I  dream  about  him;  I  may  not  have  a 
speaking  acquaintance  with  him.  I  dream  about  bim  because 
the  mention  of  his  name  has,  consciously  or  subconsciously, 
stirred  within  me,  by  association  of  ideas,  a  memory  of  some 
one  or  some  thing  that  is,  or  was  once,  of  keen  emotional  sig- 
nificance to  me." 


906  The  Dream  Life  [Bk.  Ill 

Very  well  said,  and  very  illuminating — for  part  of  the 
way.  But  no  emotional  complex  has  been  complexed  into 
the  things  my  dreams  show  immeasurably  beyond  my  powers 
or  my  wisdom  or  my  foresight.  The  "emotional  complex" 
of  course  is  the  same  sort  of  a  basket  as  the  subliminal  self. 
But  I  don't  want  to  suggest  for  a  moment  that  part  of  what 
is  usually  attributed  to  the  subliminal  self  may  not  belong 
as  nearly  permanently  in  a  man's  psyche  as  pretty  much 
anything  else  does.  But  skepticism  as  to  how  much  is  per- 
manent seems  on  the  increase. 

Despite  my  exceptions,  I  am  glad  again  to  refer  the  reader 
to  Mr.  Brace's  articles  as  a  good  and  interesting  summary 
of  most  of  what  science  yet  has  to  say  on  the  subject — and 
compared  with  its  importance,  that  is  precious  little. 

Now  for  a  few  ideas  from  Mr.  Ellis.  He  says  (World  of 
Dreams,  p.  12) : 

"When  I  read  dream  narratives  of  landscapes  which,  as  de- 
scribed, appear  at  every  point  as  beautiful  and  impressive  to 
waking  consciousness  as  they  appeared  to  dreaming  conscious- 
ness, I  usually  suspect  that  granting  the  good  faith  and  ac- 
curacy of  the  narrator,  we  are  really  concerned,  not  with 
dreams  in  the  proper  sense,  but  with  visions  experienced  under 
more  abnormal  conditions,  and  especially  with  drug  visions." 

To  my  experience  the  passage  appears  very  strange,  in  that 
it  seems  to  regard  a  dream  equal  to  waking  experience  of 
the  beautiful,  as  in  any  way  remarkable — let  alone  so  re- 
markable as  to  be  accounted  for  only  by  drugs.  I  dreamed 
such  dreams  in  childhood,  and  since  I  have  been  old  enough 
to  know  what  architecture  and  bric-a-brac  are,  I  dream 
galore  of  things  that  nobody's  waking  experience  has  ap- 
proached, and  I  never  take  any  "  drug  "  more  powerful  than 
alcohol,  or  that  beyond  rather  unusual  moderation. 

One  indication  that  the  dream-state  is  the  superior  state,  is 
this  ignorance  regarding  it  displayed  by  people  of  high  intelli- 
gence. An  illustration  is  given  by  Bucke  (op.  cit.,  38)  : 

"A  study  of  dreaming  seems  to  reveal  the  fact  that  in  sleep 
such  mind  as  we  have  differs  from  our  waking  mind,  especially 
by  being  more  primitive ...  the  more  modern  mental  faculties, 


Ch.  LIV]  Duration  of  Dreams  907 

such  as  color  sense,  musical  sense,  self -consciousness,  the  human 
moral  nature,  have  no  existence  in  this  condition,  or  if  any  of 
them  do  occur  it  is  only  as  a  rare  exception." 

This  chapter  contains  abundant  evidence  to  the  contrary. 
One  school  of  commentators  believes  that  we  dream  all 
the  while  we  are  asleep.     Ellis  says  (p.  14) : 

"Locke,  Macnish,  and  Carpenter  held  that  deep  sleep  is 
dreamless;  this  is  also  the  opinion  of  Wundt,  Beaunis,  Strum- 
pell,  Weygandt,  Hammond,  and  Jastrow.  Moreover,  there  are 
some  people,  like  Lessing,  who,  so  far  as  they  know,  never 
dream  at  all.  My  own  personal  experience  scarcely  inclines  me 
to  accept  without  qualification  the  belief  that  we  are  always 
dreaming  during  sleep." 

This  opinion  tapers  down  to  a  school  believing  that  we 
dream  only  at  the  moment  of  waking.  Some  think,  and 
with  apparent  warrant,  that  the  best  dreams,  especially  the 
somnambulic  ones,  are  in  the  deepest  sleep.  Hypnotic 
dreams,  being  accompanied  at  the  will  of  the  operator  by 
insensibility  to  pain,  suggest  deep  sleep,  except  in  relation 
to  communication  with  the  operator.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
most  significant  dreams  I  ever  had  were  brief  and  closed 
by  waking,  and  in  most  of  the  recorded  experimental  dreams, 
and  apparently  some  casual  ones,  the  exciting  cause  has  been 
followed  almost  instantly  by  waking.  Ellis,  with  his  passion 
for  drawing  everything  into  the  limits  of  ordinary  experience 
— for,  unconsciously  perhaps,  ignoring  the  transcendent  uni- 
verse— has  tried  to  controvert  the  impression  that  the  dream 
state  is  superior  to  limitations  of  time,  as  we  all  know  it 
is  of  space,  but,  it  seems  to  me,  without  convincing  success. 

His  book  is  instructive  and  charming,  but  is  mainly  re- 
stricted to  the  mere  machinery  of  dreams,  attempting  to  show 
how  all  varieties  of  them  can  be  brought  about  by  physical 
sensations  reviving  complexes  of  memory.  Nowhere  is  there 
any  satisfactory  accounting  for  things  greater  than  memory, 
much  less  for  things  opposed  to  memory,  though  at  the  end 
the  doors  and  blinds  are  opened,  and  the  free  entrance  of 
such  things  admitted.  Yet  even  there,  as  in  DuPrel  already 
mentioned  to  the  same  effect,  is  no  naming  of  anything  which 
anybody  might  be  tempted  to  call  God,  and  in  the  early  part 
of  the  book  there  is  an  obvious,  though  probably  unconscious, 


908  The  Dream  Life  [Bk.  Ill 

effort  to  get  along  without  any  such  thing — just  such  an 
effort  as  I  would  myself  have  made  during  the  reaction 
against  the  old  religions  caused  in  the  latter  half  of  the  last 
century  by  the  evolutionary  philosophy. 

But  if  the  following  passages  from  Ellis  do  not  mean  that 
the  various  processes  he  has  so  ingeniously  unraveled  result 
in  throwing  the  mind  open  to  the  Cosmic  Inflow,  and  having 
it  do  the  things  which  he  has  ignored,  or  unsatisfactorily 
accounted  for,  I  cannot  make  out  what  they  do  mean — and 
possibly  he  did  not  try  to  himself :  for  much  of  it  is  poetry. 

(Page  229.)  "  The  voluntary  field  becomes  narrower,  but  the 
involuntary  field  becomes  extended.  [Rather!  But  how?H.H.] 
Thus  it  happens  that  the  contents  of  our  minds  fall  into  a  new 
order,  an  order  which  is  often  fantastic  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  sometimes  a  more  natural  and  even  a  more  rational  order 
than  that  we  attain  in  waking  life.  Our  eyes  close,  our  muscles 
grow  slack,  the  reins  fall  from  our  hands.  But  it  sometimes 
happens  that  the  horse  knows  the  road  home  even  better  than 
we  know  it  ourselves." 

He  puts  the  horse  outside  of  the  dreamer  plainly  enough 
here. 

(Page  226.)  "  So  remote  are  we  to-day  from  the  world  of  our 
dreams  [or  from  anything  else  but  the  world  of  the  dollar. 
H.H.]  that  we  very  rarely  draw  from  them  the  inspiration  of 
our  waking  lives." 

(Page  278.)  "Dreaming  is  thus  one  of  our  roads  into  the 
infinite.  And  it  is  interesting  to  observe  how  we  obtain  it — 
by  limitation.  The  circle  of  our  conscious  life  is  narrowed 
during  sleep;  it  is  even  by  a  process  of  psychic  dissociation 
broken  up  into  fragments.  From  that  narrowed  and  broken-up 
consciousness  the  outlook  becomes  vaster  and  more  mysterious, 
full  of  strange  and  unsuspected  fascination,  and  the  possibilities 
of  new  experiences,  just  as  a  philosophic  mite  inhabiting  a  uni- 
verse consisting  of  a  Stilton  cheese  would  probably  be  com- 
pelled to  regard  everything  outside  the  cheese  as  belonging  to 
the  realm  of  the  Infinite.  In  reality,  if  we  think  of  it,  all  our 
visions  of  the  infinite  are  similarly  conditioned.  It  is  only  by 
emphasizing  our  finiteness  that  we  ever  become  conscious  of 
the  infinite." 

(Pages  279-80.)  "Yet,  while  there  is  thus  a  real  sense  in 
which  dreams  produce  their  effect  by  the  retraction  of  the  field 
of  consciousness  and  the  limitation  of  the  psychic  activities 
which  mark  ordinary  life,  it  remains  true  that  if  we  take  into 


Ch.  LIV]     Vascliide.    Bergson.    Ellis.    Ermacora          909 

account  the  complete  psychic  life  of  dreaming,  subconscious  as 
well  as  conscious,  it  is  waking,  not  sleeping,  life  which  may  be 
said  to  be  limited.  Thus  it  is,  as  we  have  seen,  that  the  most 
fundamental  and  the  most  primitive  forms  of  psychic  life,  as 
well  as  the  rarest  and  the  most  abnormal,  all  seem  to  have  their 
prototype  in  the  vast  world  of  dreams.  Sleep,  Vaschide  has 
said,  is  not,  as  Homer  thought,  the  brother  of  Death,  but  of 
Life,  and,  it  may  be  added,  the  elder  brother " 

On  p.  280  he  quotes  from  Bergson  (Revue  Philosophique, 
December,  1908,  p.  574)  : 

"  This  dream  state  is  the  substratum  of  our  normal  state. 
Nothing  is  added  in  waking  life;  on  the  contrary,  waking  life 
is  obtained  by  the  limitation,  concentration,  and  tension  of  that 
diffuse  psychological  life  which  is  the  life  of  dreaming.  The 
perception  and  the  memory  which  we  find  in  dreaming  are,  in  a 
sense,  more  natural  than  those  of  waking  life :  consciousness  is 
then  amused  in  perceiving  for  the  sake  of  perceiving,  and  in 
remembering  for  the  sake  of  remembering,  without  care  for 
life,  that  is  to  say  for  the  accomplishment  of  actions.  To  be 
awake  is  to  eliminate,  to  choose,  to  concentrate  the  totality  of 
the  diffused  life  of  dreaming  to  a  point,  to  a  practical  problem. 
To  be  awake  is  to  will;  cease  to  will,  detach  yourself  from  life, 
become  disinterested:  in  so  doing  you  pass  from  the  waking 
ego  to  the  dreaming  ego,  which  is  less  tense,  but  more  extended 
than  the  other." 

What's  all  this  but  opening  up  the  way  to  the  Cosmic 
Inflow? 

Ellis  resumes: 

(Page  281.)  "  I  have  cultivated,  so  far  as  I  care  to,  my  gar- 
den of  dreams,  and  it  scarcely  seems  to  me  that  it  is  a  large 
garden.  Yet  every  path  of  it,  I  sometimes  think,  might  lead 
at  last  to  the  heart  of  the  universe." 

Dreams  Telepathically  Induced 

In  Pr.  XI,  235ff.  there  is  a  very  suggestive  paper  by 
Dr.  G.  B.  Ermacora  in  which  he  gives  an  account  of  some 
telepathically  induced  dreams.  These,  however,  are  not,  like 
thousands  of  others,  plain  hypnotism,  and  are  blended  with 
an  element  that  strongly  suggests  spiritism.  Signora  Maria 
Manzini  was  a  sensitive,  and  had  a  child-control,  Elvira,  who 
manifested  by  heteromatic  writing.  Signora  Manzini  had 
also  a  little  cousin  Angelina  Cavazzoni,  about  four  and  a  half 
years  old  at  the  time  of  the  experiments. 


910  The  Dream  Life  [Bk.  Ill 

Here  are  some  specimens  of  what  took  place.  Dr.  Ermacora 
says  (Pr.  XI,  236-52) : 

"  I  received  from  Sig11*  Maria  a  letter  dated  September  23rd, 
of  which  I  give  a  part 

"  ' Yesterday  Angelina  arrived  and  slept  with  me.  Last 

night  I  was  sleepless  and  crying The  child  was,  I  am  sure, 

wide  awake,  and  all  at  once  I  saw  her  put  out  her  hands  as  if 
to  catch  something.  I  said  to  her,  "  Be  quiet  and  go  to  sleep." 
Then  she  said,  "  Do  you  not  see,  Aunt,"  (Angelina  calls  Sig11* 
Maria  aunt,  although  really  she  is  her  cousin,  but  not  of  the 
same  generation)  "that  beautiful  child?"  I  looked  at  the  pic- 
tures in  the  room,  for  at  that  particular  moment  I  was  not 
thinking  of  spirits.  And  she  added,  "Are  you  deaf;  don't  you 
hear  her  speaking?  And  she  says  to  me  that  you  should  not 
weep,  but  that  you  should  sleep."  Then  I  bethought  myself  of 
the  little  Elvira,  and  I  asked  Angelina,  "  How  is  she  dressed  ?  " 
She  replied,  "  She  has  a  beautiful  blue  pinafore,  Aunt ;  make 
one  like  it  for  me  to-morrow."  Then  nothing  more  passed. 
But  this  morning,  the  first  thing  for  which  she  asked  me,  be- 
fore I  had  spoken  to  her,  was  the  pinafore  like  that  of  the 
little  girl.  It  may  be  nothing,  but  to-day  I  shall  try  to  make 
her  write  (automatically),  and  shall  watch  whether  she  hears 
herself  spoken  to.' 

"[E.]  On  October  18th,  1892,  I  returned  to  Padua,  and  on 
the  same  evening  I  recommenced  experimenting  with  Sig11* 
Maria  with  automatic  writing. 

"  The  personality  Elvira  manifested  itself  and  at  once  asked 
after  Angelina,  and,  without  being  questioned,  told  us  that . . . 
she  hoped  to  be  able  to  show  us  something  fine  soon 

"  On  the  evening  of  October  19th, ...  I  asked  Elvira  if  she 
could  appear  to  Angelina,  as  she  said  she  had  done  on  the 
night  of  September  22nd  to  23rd.  She  replied  [by  heteromatic 
writing  through  Sig11*  Manzini,  as  I  understand.  H.H.] : 

" '  Certainly  I  can,  but  the  child  must  be  sleeping,  and  if  I 
can  I  will  appear  to  her  in  a  dream.  You  must  ask  her  after- 
wards what  she  has  seen,  and  so  discover  whether  I  have  suc- 
ceeded.'— Question.  '  But  why  do  you  doubt  your  power  to  make 
her  see  you  in  a  dream,  if  you  have  already  been  able  to  show 
yourself  to  her  when  awake?  Answer.  'Yes,  that  is  a  reason- 
able question;  but  you  must  know  that  on  that  evening,  seeing 
Maria  very  unhappy,  I  made  a  great  effort,  which  can  only  be 
made  for  a  person  extraordinarily  dear,  and  so  I  succeeded. 

However,  I  will  try  this  evening  in  a  dream ' — Q.  '  How 

must  we  try?  Will  you  show  yourself  to  Angelina  after  Maria 
[The  aunt.  H.H.]  has  been  sent  to  sleep,  or  before?'  A.  'I 
warn  you  first  that  this  is  not  a  proper  evening  to  send  Maria 
to  sleep.  I  will  appear  to  Angelina  in  the  form  of  a  child  with 


Ch.  LIV]  Angelina  Cavazzoni's  Induced  Dreams  911 

a  beautiful  doll  in  my  arms,  and  if  I  can  I  will  come  in  another 
color  (i.e.,  not  dressed  in  her  favorite  blue)....  I  wish  to  try 
at  once,  but  mind  you  ask  the  child  what  she  has  seen.  I  may 
very  likely  be  dressed  in  pink,  and  if  I  succeed  I  shall  be  con- 
tent. I  warn  you  that  I  shall  not  communicate  again  this 
evening,  and  so  I  wish  you  good  evening,  but  remember  that  if 
I  fail  it  is  not  my  fault,  not  being  accustomed  to  do 
this ' " 

"  [E.]  The  evening  of  the  following  day  (October  20th)  Sig1* 
Maria  told  me  that  by  means  of  persistent,  but  not  suggestive, 
questions  she  had  been  able  to  elicit  from  Angelina  that  she  had 
dreamt  of  Elvira  with  a  doll  in  her  arms,  but  she  was  dressed  in 
blue  and  not  in  pink  as  had  been  settled 

"  In  the  next  communication  from  Elvira  (by  automatic  writ- 
ing, October  21st),  she  justified  the  partial  failure  in  her  own 
way,  saying  that  '  she  had  not  had  time  to  make  another  color ' 
(i.e.,  different  from  the  usual  one).  She  did  not  seem  disposed 
to  repeat  the  experiment  that  evening. 

"  Experiment  2. — October  24th.  Evening . . .  Elvira  . . .  pro- 
posed to  cause  Angelina  to  dream  of  her  dressed  in  pink,  with  a 
white  parasol  in  one  hand,  and  a  fan,  also  white,  in  the  other, 
and  with  bare  feet,  according  to  her  custom 

"  October  25th. — In  the  evening,  when  I  went  to  Signa  Maria's 
house,  she  told  me  that  Angelina  kept  saying  to  her  all  day  that 
she  wanted  a  white  parasol  and  a  white  fan.  Signa  Maria  did 
not  guess  the  origin  of  the  child's  wish. 

"Experiment  5. — During  the  trance,  and  while  Elvira  was 
present,  I  asked  her  to  make  Angelina  dream  as  follows:  she 
was  to  be  at  Venice  in  a  two-oared  gondola  with  Signa  Maria 
and  me,  and  go  to  the  Lido.  Elvira  justly  observed  that  the 
child  on  waking  would  not  be  able  to  explain  the  object  of  our 
excursion,  and  that,  therefore,  to  make  sure  of  the  place  she 
must  be  made  to  see  the  horses,  the  baths,  and  the  sea  with 
its  waves,  Elvira  making  the  sound  '  vuuh '  to  imitate  the  noise 
of  the  waves 

"  When  Signa  Maria  got  up,  about  9 :30,  the  child  asked  for 
a  story,  and  on  being  told  that  Signa  Maria  did  not  know  any, 
said,  '  Then  I  will  tell  you  one,  only  I  have  forgotten — that  little 
girl  has  told  me  so  many  pretty  ones ! '  Signa  Maria  asked, 
'What  little  girl?'  'The  one  I  know,  the  one  who  always 
comes.  She  was  dressed  in  blue,  and  we  were  in  a  boat  with 
two  oars,  and  we  went  to  the  Gardens.  There  were  lots  of 
horses,  and  the  sea  said  "  vuuh !  " '  (imitating  the  sound  which 
Elvira  had  produced  motorially  [By  the  voice,  as  I  understand. 
H.H.]  the  evening  before ...  at  first  Elvira  did  not  understand 
the  aim  of  these  experiments,  and  as  she  herself  afterwards  told 
me,  she  omitted  some  things  as  of  no  importance,  and  added 
others  to  make  the  dream  prettier.  When  this  was  clear  to  me, 


913  The  Dream  Life  [Bk.  Ill 

I  asked  Elvira  to  aim  first  of  all  at  precision,  upon  which  the 

successes  sensibly  improved ' 

"  October  30th. — SigM  Maria  was  again  ill  in  bed.  She  told 
me  that  to-day  Angelina  had  asked  her  to  make  a  frock  and 
buy  a  pair  of  shoes  for  the  blue  child,  who  must  be  cold  in  her 
blue  chemise  and  with  bare  feet " 

Induced  Dreams  of  Various  Suggested  Objects 

"Experiment  6. — October  Slst,  1892. — Elvira  manifested  in 
the  trance  motorially,  and  promised  to  make  another  dream 
experiment  that  night. . . .  She  would  take  the  child  to  Venice 
and  show  her  the  regatta  from  the  Rialto ;  red  will  win 

"I  told  Elvira  that  I  wished  the  child  to  hear  the  fru-fru 
which  the  prows  of  the  boats  make  in  cutting  the  water,  and  I 
asked  her  to  make  the  sound  so  that  I  might  know  what  char- 
acteristic it  acquired  when  reproduced  by  Signa  Maria  in  the 
character  of  Elvira.  She  emitted  the  prolonged  sound  ff,  ff, 
which  is  really  a  better  imitation  of  the  real  sound. 

"  To  my  question  whether  she  needed  a  longer  time  to  act  to 
produce  a  dream  apparently  long,  she  replied,  '  One  or  two 
minutes  longer.  We  can  produce  dreams  which  seem  to  you 
to  last  for  hours  in  a  short  time.' 

"  November  1st She  had  thought  last  night  that  she  was 

at  Venice  on  the  Riva  del  Vino,  close  to  the  Rialto,  in  the  com- 
pany of  the  usual  bliee  child.  The  small  steamboats  for  pas- 
senger service  had  stopped  running,  and  the  boats  were  not 
about  as  usual.  Instead  there  were  some  boats  which  went  very 
fast,  rowed  by  men  dressed  in  different  colors.  The  water 
dividing  before  their  prows  made  the  sound  gro,  gro.  The  boat 
in  front  carried  two  men  dressed  in  red.  Elvira  and  Angelina 
fanned  themselves  with  a  large  fan." 

"  Experiment  12. — November  9th. — I  proposed  the  following 
dream  for  the  next  night : — Angelina,  with  Signa  Maria,  would 
be  at  the  window  of  her  own  room,  and  would  look  towards  the 
river.  A  lamb  would  be  grazing  on  the  bank.  A  boat  loaded 
with  apples  would  pass,  conducted  by  one  boatman.  He  would 
stop  close  to  the  iron  bridge,  and  get  out  to  drink  at  the  inn. 
While  the  boat  was  unguarded  the  lamb  would  jump  in  and 
begin  to  eat  the  apples,  which  would  make  Angelina  laugh  very 
much 

"  Angelina  told  her  dream  before  Signa  Maria  was  awake . . . 
there  are  two  points  of  difference  which  are  precisely  what 
render  the  result  most  interesting.  One  is  that  Angelina  called 
the  animal  which  ate  the  apples  a  '  light-colored  dog,'  instead 
of  a  'lamb.'  Now  the  child,  being  a  Venetian,  had  not  seen 
any  lambs,  and  when  she  saw  one,  she  naturally  baptized  it  in 
her  own  fashion.  The  other  point  of  difference  is  that  she  did 


Ch.  LIV]    Angelina  Cavazzoni's  Induced  Dreams  913 

not  say  where  the  boatman  had  gone,  and,  when  questioned  oni 
the  point  on  my  arrival,  she  could  not  explain  it,  though  she 
remembered  the  dream  perfectly.    According  to  what  was  said 
above,  these  two  particulars  favor  the  hypothesis  that  the  child 
sees  the  scene  instead  of  simply  hearing  it  described." 

Similarly  the  child  was  made  to  dream  of  pictures  repre- 
senting persons,  actual  landscapes,  etc.,  and  selected  the  right 
ones  from  many. 

Dr.  Ermacora  believes  "  Elvira "  to  be  a  dissociated  sub- 
personality  really  a  part  of  Signora  Maria.  That  is  vastly 
less  improbable  than  that  all  of  Mrs.  Piper's  people,  with  their 
infinitely  greater  variety  of  veridicity,  initiative,  interplay, 
emotion,  and  distinct  characters  and  memories,  are  dissociated 
personalities.  But  as  I  have  pondered  the  evidence,  Dr. 
Ermacora's  theory  seems  to  me  less  and  less  to  fit.  There's 
too  much  rationality  and  consistency  and  interplay,  and  too 
little  abnormality  in  Signora  Manzini  and  in  Angelina. 

But  these  induced  dreams  certainly  go  to  support  the 
theory  with  which  I  fear  I  have  by  this  time  taxed  your 
patience. 


CHAPTEE    LV 
DREAMS  INDICATING  SURVIVAL  OF  DEATH 

HERE  is  something  that  looks  enormously  like  survival  of 
death  indicated  in  a  dream.  It  is  somewhat  condensed  from 
Myers's  Human  Personality  (I,  144-7) : 

"  The  fact  that  the  deceased  brother  was  a  twin  of  Mrs. 
Storie's  [the  writer's.  H.H.]  adds  interest  to  the  case,  since  one 
clue  (a  vague  one  as  yet)  to  the  causes  directing  and  deter- 
mining telepathic  communications  lies  in  what  seems  their  ex- 
ceptional frequency  between  twins; — the  closest  of  all  relations. 

"  <  HOBART  TOWN,  July  1874. 

" '  On  the  evening  of  the  18th  July,  I  felt  unusually  nervous. 
This  seemed  to  begin  [with  the  occurrence  of  a  small  domestic 

annoyance.    H.H.]  about  half -past  8  o'clock 1  fancied,  as  I 

stepped  into  bed,  that  some  one  in  thought  tried  to  stop  me. 
At  2  o'clock  I  woke  from  the  following  dream.  It  seemed  like 
in  dissolving  views.  In  a  twinkle  of  light  I  saw  a  railway,  and 
the  puff  of  the  engine.  I  thought,  "  What's  going  on  up  there  ? 
Travelling?  I  wonder  if  any  of  us  are  travelling  and  I  dream- 
ing of  it."  Some  one  unseen  by  me  answered,  "  No ;  something 
quite  different — something  wrong."  "I  don't  like  to  look  at 
these  things,"  I  said.  Then  I  saw  behind  and  above  my  head 
William's  upper  half  reclining,  eyes  and  mouth  half  shut;  his 
chest  moved  forward  convulsively,  and  he  raised  his  right  arm. 
Then  he  bent  forward,  saying,  "I  suppose  I  should  move  out 
of  this."  Then  I  saw  him  lying,  eyes  shut,  on  the  ground,  flat, 
the  chimney  of  an  engine  at  his  head.  I  called  in  excitement, 
"  That  will  strike  him !  "  The  "  some  one  "  answered,  "  Yes — 
well,  here's  what  it  was";  and  immediately  I  saw  William  sit- 
ting in  the  open  air — faint  moonlight — on  a  raised  place  side- 
ways. He  raised  his  right  arm,  shuddered,  and  said,  "  I  can't 
go  on,  or  back,  No."  Then  he  seemed  lying  flat.  I  cried  out, 
"  Oh !  Oh !  "  and  others  seemed  to  echo,  "  Oh !  Oh !  "  He  seemed 
then  upon  his  elbow,  saying,  "  Now  it  comes."  Then  as  if 
struggling  to  rise,  turned  twice  round  quickly,  saying,  "  Is  it 
the  train?  the  train,  the  train,"  his  right  shoulder  reverberating 
as  if  struck  from  behind.  He  fell  back  like  fainting;  his  eyes 
rolled.  A  large  dark  object  came  between  us  like  panelling  of 
wood,  and  rather  in  the  dark  something  rolled  over,  and  like  an 

914 


Ch.  LV]  Mrs.  Storie's  Railway  Dream  915 

arm  was  thrown  up,  and  the  whole  thing  went  away  with  a 
swish.  Close  beside  me  on  the  ground  there  seemed  a  long 
dark  object.  I  called  out,  "They've  left  something  behind; 
it's  like  a  man."  It  then  raised  its  shoulders  and  head,  and 
fell  down  again.  The  same  some  one  answered,  "  Yes,  sadly." 
[  ?  "  Yes,"  sadly.]  After  a  moment  I  seemed  called  on  to  look 
up,  and  said,  "  Is  that  thing  not  away  yet  ?  "  Answered,  "  No." 
And  in  front,  in  light,  there  was  a  railway  compartment  in 
which  sat  Rev.  Mr.  Johnstone,  of  Echuca.  I  said,  "  What's  he 
doing  there  ?  "  Answered,  "  He's  there."  A  railway  porter  went 

up  to  the  window  asking,  "  Have  you  seen  any  of  ."     I 

caught  no  more,  but  I  thought  he  referred  to  the  thing  left 
behind.  Mr.  Johnstone  seemed  to  answer  "  No  " ;  and  the  man 
went  quickly  away — I  thought  to  look  for  it.  After  all  this  the 
some  one  said  close  to  me,  "  Now  I'm  going."  I  started,  and  at 

once  saw  \  a  *a!ldar,k  £gT  at  my  ^ad'  !•     He  put  his  right 
I     William's  back  at  my  side,     j 

hand  (in  grief)  over  his  face,  and  the  other  almost  touching 
my  shoulder,  he  crossed  in  front,  looking  stern  and  solemn. 
There  was  a  flash  from  the  eyes,  and  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  a 
fine  pale  face  like  ushering  him  along,  and  indistinctly  another. 
I  felt  frightened,  and  called  out,  "Is  he  angry?"  "Oh,  no." 
"  Is  he  going  away  ?  "  Answered,  "  Yes"  by  the  same  some  one, 
and  I  woke  with  a  loud  sigh,  which  woke  my  husband,  who 
said,  "  What  is  it  ? "  I  told  him  I  had  been  dreaming  "  some- 
thing unpleasant " — named  a  "  railway,"  and  dismissed  it  all 
from  my  mind  as  a  dream.  As  I  fell  asleep  again  I  fancied  the 
"  some  one  "  said,  "  It's  all  gone,"  and  another  answered,  "  I'll 
come  and  remind  her." ' 

" '  The  news  reached  me  one  week  afterward.  The  accident 
had  happened  to  my  brother  on  the  same  night  about  half- 
past  nine  o'clock.  Rev.  Mr.  Johnstone  and  his  wife  were 
actually  in  the  train  which  struck  him.  He  was  walking  along 
the  line,  which  is  raised  two  feet  on  a  level  country.  He 
seemed  to  have  gone  16  miles — must  have  been  tired  and  sat 
down  to  take  off  his  boot,  which  was  beside  him,  dozed  off  and 
was  very  likely  roused  by  the  sound  of  the  train.'  " 

"  [Myers  comments]  '  Here,'  says  Gurney,  '  the  difficulty  of 
referring  the  true  elements  of  the  dream  to  the  agent's  mind 
[is  very  great.  H.H."|.  For  Mr.  Hunter  [the  victim.  H.H.] 
was  asleep;  and  even  if  we  can  conceive  that  the  image  of  the 
advancing  engine  may  have  had  some  place  in  his  mind,  the 
presence  of  Mr.  Johnstone  could  not  have  been  perceived  by 
him.  But  it  is  possible,  of  course,  to  regard  this  last  item  of 
correspondence  as  accidental,  even  though  the  dronm  was  tele- 
pathic. It  will  be  observed  that  the  dream  followed  the  acci- 
dent by  about  four  hours;  such  deferment  is,  I  think,  a  strong 
point  in  favor  of  telepathic,  as  opposed  to  independent,  clair- 
voyance.' 


916  Dreams  Indicating  Survival  of  Death     [Bk.  Ill 

"  I  propose  as  an  alternative  explanation, — for  reasons  which 
I  endeavor  to  justify  in  later  chapters, — that  the  deceased 
brother,  aided  by  some  other  dimly  discerned  spirit  [the  fre- 
quent voice.  H.H.],  was  endeavoring  to  present  to  Mrs.  Storie 
a  series  of  pictures  representing  his  death — as  realized  after  his 
death.  I  add  this  last  clause,  because  one  of  the  marked  points 
in  the  dream  was  the  presence  in  the  train  of  Mr.  Johnstone 
of  Echuca — a  fact  which  (as  Gurney  remarks)  the  dying  man 
could  not  possibly  know." 

How  would  the  World  Soul  do  instead  of  Myers's  "  other 
dimly  discerned  spirit " — for  the  solution  of  the  whole  thing  ? 

What  often  seems  to  me  the  strongest  evidence  for  survival 
that  I  have  met  in  my  reading  (though  I  have  met  stronger 
in  my  experience,  but  unfortunately  can  give  but  a  shadow  of 
it,  as  will  be  seen  later)  is  given  in  Pr.  Ill,  96. 

Mr.  D.,  personally  known  to  Mr.  Gurney,  had  a  factory 
in  Glasgow,  which  he  represented  in  London.  I  condense  his 
narrative  mainly  in  his  own  words.  One  of  his  employees 
in  Glasgow,  Robert  Mackenzie,  left  his  employ 

"through  the  selfish  advice  of  older  hands,  who  practised  this 
frightening  away  systematically  to  keep  wages  from  being  low- 
ered, a  common  device A  few  years  afterwards,  my  eye  was 

caught  by  a  youth  of  some  18  years  of  age  ravenously  devouring 
a  piece  of  dry  bread  on  the  public  street,  and  bearing  all  the 
appearance  of  being  in  a  chronic  state  of  starvation.  Fancying 
I  knew  his  features,  I  asked  if  his  name  were  not  Mackenzie. 
He  at  once  became  much  excited,  addressed  me  by  name,  and 
informed  me  that ...  he  was  literally  homeless  and  starving. . . . 
In  an  agony  of  grief  he  deplored  his  ever  leaving  me  under  evil 
advice,  and  on  my  unexpectedly  offering  to  take  him  back  he 
burst  into  a  transport  of  thanks. . . .  He  resumed  his  work, . . . 
and  I  did  everything  in  my  power  to  facilitate  his  progress." 

The  boy's  gratitude  was  such  that  whenever  Mr.  D.  was 
in  sight  of  him  at  the  factory: 

"  Let  me  look  towards  him  at  any  moment,  there  was  the 
pale,  sympathetic  face  with  the  large  and  wistful  eyes,  literally 
yearning  towards  me  as  Smike's  did  towards  Nicholas  Nickleby. 
. . .  This  intensity  of  gratitude  never  appeared  to  lessen  . . . 

through  lapse  of  time 1  was  apparently  his  sole  thought  and 

consideration,  saving  the  more  common  concerns  of  daily  life." 

Mr.  D.  moved  to  London,  and  never  again  saw  Mackenzie 
in  the  flesh.  Some  dozen  years  elapsed  when,  one  Tuesday 


Ch,  LV]       Mackenzie,  the  Grateful  Employee  *  ?  917 

morning   after  his   workmen's    annual   ball    the   preceding 
Friday,  Mr.  D.  had  a  dream. 

"I  was  seated  at  a  desk,  engaged  in  a  business  conversation 
with  an  unknown  gentleman,  who  stood  on  my  right  hand. 
Towards  me,  in  front,  advanced  Robert  Mackenzie,  and,  feeling 
annoyed,  I  addressed  him  with  some  asperity,  asking  him  if  he 
did  not  see  that  I  was  engaged.  He  retired  a  short  distance 
with  exceeding  reluctance,  turned  again  to  approach  me,  as  if 
most  desirous  for  an  immediate  colloquy,  when  I  spoke  to  him 
still  more  sharply  as  to  his  want  of  manners.  On  this,  the 
person  with  whom  I  was  conversing  took  his  leave,  and  Mac- 
kenzie once  more  came  forward.  '  What  is  all  this  Robert?'  I 
asked,  somewhat  angrily.  'Did  you  not  see  I  was  engaged?' 
'  Yes,  sir,'  he  replied ;  '  but  I  must  speak  with  you  at  once.'  [I 
have  an  object  in  giving  the  preceding  account  of  Mackenzie's 
apparent  difficulty  in  getting  to  Mr.  D.,  which  will  be  found  ex- 
plained on  pp.  919  and  921.  H.H.]  '  What  about? '  I  said; '  what 
is  it  that  can  be  so  important?'  'I  wish  to  tell  you,  sir,'  he 
answered,  '  that  I  am  accused  of  doing  a  thing  I  did  not  do,  and 
that  I  want  you  to  know  it,  and  to  tell  you  so,  and  that  you  are 
to  forgive  me  for  what  I  am  blamed  for,  because  I  am  innocent.' 
Then,  '  I  did  not  do  the  thing  they  say  I  did.'  I  said,  '  What? ' 
getting  same  answer.  I  then  naturally  asked,  '  But  how  can  I 
forgive  you  if  you  do  not  tell  me  what  you  are  accused  of  ? '  I 
can  never  forget  the  emphatic  manner  of  his  answer,  in  the 
Scottish  dialect,  '  Ye'll  sune  ken '  (you'll  soon  know).  This 
question  and  the  answer  were  repeated  at  least  twice — I  am 
certain  the  answer  was  repeated  thrice,  in  the  most  fervid  tone. 
On  that  I  awoke,  and  was  in  that  state  of  surprise  and  be- 
wilderment which  such  a  remarkable  dream,  qua  mere  dream, 
might  induce,  and  was  wondering  what  it  all  meant,  when  my 
wife  burst  into  my  bedroom,  much  excited,  and  holding  an  open 
letter  in  her  hand,  exclaimed,  "  Oh,  James,  here's  a  terrible  end 
to  the  workmen's  ball,  Robert  Mackenzie  has  committed  sui- 
cide ! "  With  now  a  full  conviction  of  the  meaning  of  the 
vision,  I  at  once  quietly  and  firmly  said,  '  No,  he  has  not  com- 
mitted suicide.'  'How  can  you  possibly  know  that?'  'Be- 
cause he  has  just  been  here  to  tell  me.' " 

By  the  next  post  the  manager  wrote  that  it  was  not  suicide ! 
It  appeared  that  Mackenzie  had  drunk  aqua  fortis  in  mis- 
take for  whisky.     Later  Mr.  D.  says  of  the  dream: 

"  I  have  purposely  not  mentioned  in  its  proper  place,  so  as 
not  to  break  the  narrative,  that  on  looking  at  Mackenzie  I 
was  struck  by  the  peculiar  appearance  of  his  countenance.  It 
was  of  an  indescribable  bluish-pale  color,  and  on  his  forehead 
appeared  spots  which  seemed  like  blots  of  sweat.  For  this  I 


918  Dreams  Indicating  Survival  of  Death     [Bk.  Ill 

could  not  account Still  pondering  upon  the  peculiar  color  of 

his  countenance,  it  struck  me  to  consult  some  authorities  on 
the  symptoms  of  poisoning  by  aqua  fortis,  and  in  Mr.  J.  H. 
Walsh's  '  Domestic  Medicine  and  Surgery,'  p.  172,  I  found  these 
words  under  symptoms  of  poisoning  by  sulphuric  acid  . . . '  the 
skin  covered  with  a  cold  sweat;  countenance  livid  and  expres- 
sive of  dreadful  suffering.'...  '  Aqua  fortis  produces  the  same 
effect  as  sulphuric,  the  only  difference  being  that  the  external 
stains,  if  any,  are  yellow  instead  of  brown.'  This  refers  to  in- 
dication of  sulphuric  acid,  '  generally  outside  of  the  mouth,  in 
the  shape  of  brown  spots.'  Having  no  desire  to  accommodate 
my  facts  to  this  scientific  description,  I  give  the  quotations 
freely,  only,  at  the  same  time,  stating  that  previously  to  read- 
ing the  passage  in  Mr.  Walsh's  book,  I  had  not  the  slightest 
knowledge  of  these  symptoms,  and  I  consider  that  they  agree 
fairly  and  sufficiently  with  what  I  saw,  viz.,  a  livid  face  covered 
with  a  remarkable  sweat,  and  having  spots  (particularly  on  the 
forehead),  which,  in  my  dream,  I  thought  great  blots  of  perspira- 
tion. It  seems  not  a  little  striking  that  I  had  no  previous 
knowledge  of  these  symptoms,  and  yet  should  take  note  of 
them. 

" In  speaking  of  this  matter,  to  me  very  affecting  and 

solemn,  I  have  been  quite  disgusted  by  sceptics  treating  it  as 
a  hallucination,  in  so  far  as  that  my  dream  must  have  been  on 
the  Wednesday  morning,  being  that  after  the  receipt  of  my 
manager's  letter  informing  me  of  the  supposed  suicide.  This 
explanation  is  too  absurd  to  require  a  serious  answer.  My  man- 
ager first  heard  of  the  death  on  the  Monday — wrote  me  on  that 
day  as  above — and  on  the  Tuesday  wrote  again  explaining  the 
true  facts.  The  dream  was  on  the  Tuesday  morning,  im- 
mediately before  the  8  A.  M.  post  delivery,  hence  the  thrice  em- 
phatic '  Ye'll  sune  ken.' ...  I  have  colored  nothing,  and  leave 
my  readers  to  draw  their  own  conclusions." 

Mrs.  D.  corroborates  her  husband's  narrative,  saying  among 
other  things: 

"  I  ran  upstairs  to  Mr.  D.'s  bedroom  with  the  letter  in  my 
hand,  and  in  much  excitement.  I  found  him  apparently  just 
coming  out  of  sleep,  and  hastily  cried  out  to  him,  exactly  as 
he  has  described  to  you.  I  need  not  go  over  the  words,  which 
have  often  been  repeated  amongst  us  since,  and  I  can  confirm  his 
narrative  regarding  them  as  given  to  you,  in  every  particular. 
The  whole  affair  gave  us  a  great  shock." 

This  dream  is  given  in  a  paper  by  Mrs.  Sidgwick  (Pr.  Ill, 
69f.),  where  she  is  trying  to  account,  so  far  as  possible,  for 
all  sorts  of  phantasms  by  known  causes,  though  she  does  not 
dispute  the  possibility  of  unknown  ones.  She  says: 


Ch.  LV]  Forced  Explanations  919 

"  It  would  be  very  interesting  to  know — though  at  this  dis- 
tance of  time  impossible,  I  fear,  to  ascertain, — whether  at  the 
time  of  the  dream  it  was  known  to  any  living  man  that  Mac- 
kenzie had  not  committed  suicide." 

Now  suppose,  for  argument's  sake,  that  it  could  be  definitely 
demonstrated  that  at  the  time  of  the  dream  Mackenzie's  in- 
nocence of  suicide  was  known  to  some  living  person,  and 
suppose — a  vastly  harder  supposition — that  it  was  telepath- 
ically  conveyed  to  Mr.  D.,  there  is  still  needed  the  motive 
for  an  outsider  conveying  it  to  a  man  whom  Mackenzie  had 
not  seen  for  a  dozen  years,  and  for  the  form  of  the  con- 
veyance. 

With  profound  confidence  in  the  intelligence  and  candor 
of  Mrs.  Sidgwick,  I  can  but  regard  an  intimation  that 
knowledge  in  another  mind  would  account  for  the  dream,  as 
an  illustration  of  the  straining  of  hypothesis  in  many  of  these 
problems,  that  even  the  most  capable  people  fall  into  when 
they  are  taking  the  anti-spiritistic  side. 

Another  hypothesis  perhaps  more  strained  still  is,  that  from 
the  billions  of  disconnected  fragments  in  Mr.  D.'s  memory, 
he  constructed  in  the  ordinary  way  a  complex  dream  which 
by  pure  coincidence  fitted  all  the  complex  requirements  of 
the  situation.  The  chances  against  this  could  probably  be 
expressed  only  in  figures  too  vast  for  intelligent  human  com- 
prehension, and  yet  similar  hypotheses  from  people  who  con- 
sider themselves  "  scientific  "  are  met  with  at  every  turn. 

The  only  other  hypothesis  I  can  frame  is  that  Mackenzie's 
soul  survived  and  found  its  way  over  difficulties  symbolized 
by  the  business  interview  (I  shall  offer  a  similar  illustration 
of  difficulties  later),  and  found  telepathic  means  of  impress- 
ing its  presence,  and  vindicating  itself,  to  its  adored  bene- 
factor. 

Judgment  in  such  cases  as  these  is,  even  more  than  in 
ordinary  questions,  a  matter  of  personal  experience  and  tem- 
perament. To  many  the  third  hypothesis  will  appear  more 
strained  than  either  of  the  first  two,  strained  beyond  all 
thinkable  probability  as  they  are.  To  me  the  third  seems 
vastly  the  least  improbable,  and  I  will  now  give  incidentally 
some  of  the  faintest  of  the  reasons  why.  The  extreme  inti- 


920  Dreams  Indicating  Survival  of  Death     [Bk.  Ill 

macy  of  the  strongest  reasons  confines  me  to  reasons  less 
strong,  which  can  give  only  a  faint  and  disproportioned  re- 
flection of  the  actual  case. 

I  wish  I  could  give  the  argument  the  force  it  deserves  by 
telling  in  full  three  dreams  that  have  convinced  me  of  per- 
sonal survival,  but  though  I  remember  them  very  distinctly — 
a  strange  experience  with  dreams — all  I  can  tell  is  their  least 
significant  parts.  As  has  been  noted  so  often  before,  the 
great  lack  in  all  the  published  evidence  for  survival  is  that 
best  portion  which  is  too  intimate  to  print. 

In  one  dream  somebody  was  seeking  entrance  to  a  room 
where  I  was,  and  somebody  was  opposing:  there  was  an 
altercation  which  I  could  hear,  but  I  did  not  recognize  the 
yoices.  For  reasons  which  will  appear  at  once,  one  of  them 
must  have  been  demanding  entrance,  not  for  himself,  but 
for  another  person,  who  soon  appeared. 

The  altercation  ceased,  and  a  vision  of  an  absolutely  un- 
expected friend,  whose  voice  was  not  that  of  either  speaker, 
suddenly  flashed  upon  me  as  if  shown  from  darkness  by 
summer  lightning,  and  disappeared  as  I  awoke. 

The  guise  and  pose  were  very  extraordinary  and  about  the 
last  I  could  have  expected,  and  the  expression  of  countenance 
was  as  near  the  opposite  of  anything  I  could  have  expected, 
as  was  possible  within  the  bounds  of  sympathy.  These  two 
facts  puzzled  me  for  years,  until,  connecting  them  with  still 
more  marked  features  of  the  vision,  which  I  cannot  tell,  I 
puzzled  out  the  meaning.  It  was  the  close  of  an  eager  sen- 
tence that  was  interrupted  by  death,  and  an  assurance  that 
certain  difficulties  involved  in  the  completed  sentence  were  at 
last  surmounted. 

The  skeptical  reader  will  think  that  I  have  forced  this 
meaning  into  circumstances  susceptible  of  a  variety  of  con- 
structions. In  answer  I  can  only  say  that  this  is  the  first 
and  only  construction  I  have  been  able  to  put  upon  them, 
and  it  took  years  to  arrive  at  that. 

The  natural  inquiry  arises :  Why  wasn't  the  message  made 
plainer?  That  inquiry  has  followed  us  through  hundreds 
of  pages.  Better  drop  it,  perhaps,  and  dwell  rather  on  the  in- 
dications that  Nature  is  beginning  to  treat  us  with  these  vague 


Ch.  LV]    Experience  Warrants  Bold  Interpretations      921 

messages  across  the  gulf  where  hitherto  her  perhaps  most 
marked  effort  has  been  to  render  impossible  any  communica- 
tion at  all.  She  seems  to  permit  the  communication  now 
because  she  has  at  last  evolved  us  to  the  point  where  our 
breadth  of  vision  and  sense  of  duty  eliminate  the  danger 
that  such  messages  will  weaken  our  interest  in  our  responsi- 
bilities here,  let  them  slip  away,  or  even  tempt  us,  in  hours 
of  discouragement,  to  cut  them  off. 

I  have  these  reasons  for  believing  that  the  manifestation 
was  really  that  of  a  surviving  personality: 

I.  The  obstacles  to  the  manifestation:  manifestations  of 
personalities   (if  such  they  are)   through  mediums,  and  in 
some  dreams    (cf.   the   astounding  ones   just   quoted   from 
Mr.  D.),  do  often  seem,  as  this  was,  to  be  obstructed :  in  ordi- 
nary visions,  seldom  if  ever,  so  far  as  my  reading  has  gone. 

II.  My  absolute  surprise  at  seeing  who  it  was.     The  per- 
sonality could  not  have  come  from  my  mind:  even,  as  said, 
the  voice  claiming  entrance  was  not  the  voice  of  the  person 
soon  after  manifested — was  so  different  in  fact  as  to  suggest, 
on  after  reflection,  that  a  third  party  was  arguing  the  mani- 
festor's  case  with  the  objector. 

III.  The  very  peculiar  pose  and  guise  and  puzzling  ex- 
pression of  countenance.     There  were  ante-mortem  circum- 
stances which  made  all  those  peculiarities  strangely  instruc- 
tive; and  yet  so  unexpected  were  they — so  unnatural,  at  first 
thought — that  it  took  me  years  to  get  at  their  strangely 
appropriate  fitness  and  significance. 

IV.  The   probability   that   the   manifestor,   if   surviving, 
would  have  been  absorbed,  more  than  by  any  other  desire, 
with  the  desire  to  give  just  the  message  that  was  given. 

V.  The  almost,  if  not  quite,  supernormal  intelligence  with 
which  the  knowledge  was,  so  to  speak,  pantomimically  con- 
veyed, though  the  spectacle  endured  hardly  longer  than  a 
flash. 

VI.  The  years  after  the  sentence  was  cut  short  by  death 
before  the  rest  of  it,  and  the  interpretation  of  it,  reached  me. 
This  may  have  been  due  to  the  difficulties  of  communication — 
perhaps  the  rarity  of  the  fortuitous  (?)  combination  of  many 
circumstances  which  in  most  cases  seems  necessary  to  render 
communication  possible.    But  aside  from  the  apparent  difficul- 


922  Dreams  Indicating  Survival  of  Death     [Bk.  Ill 

ties  of  communication,  a  very  strange  and  important  con- 
sideration in  the  same  direction  has  become  obvious  to  me. 
If  that  communication  had  been  made  much  earlier,  it  would 
have  changed  the  current  of  my  life  away  from  some  im- 
portant sources  of  development;  being  made  when  it  did 
finally  dawn  upon  me,  it  gave  me  a  control  over  the  sources 
of  development  which,  without  it,  I  could  not  have  had,  and 
without  which  I  might  have  made  a  disastrous  failure, 
whereas  I  have  made  a  passable  success. 

This  is  doubly  true  of  another  dream  which  had  one  or 
two  other  resemblances  to  the  one  just  treated.  The  person 
was  so  unexpected  that  in  a  dim  room  (obstacle  again !)  I  sup- 
posed it  to  be  somebody  else,  until  a  nickname  was  uttered, 
after  which  the  place  grew  light.  There  were  such  changes  of 
voice  and  aspect,  too,  as  the  many  years  since  the  time  of 
death  would  have  produced — notably  a  single  streak  of  gray 
hair.  All  this  was  entirely  unexpected.  Yet  the  authorities  (  ?) 
say  that  it  was  made  by  me — including  the  strange  placing  of 
the  gray  in  the  hair,  which  I  have  never  seen  over  two  or 
three  examples  of,  and  never  had  any  association  with. 

The  principal  message  in  the  later  dream  was  also  appar- 
ently delivered  in  spite  of  obstacles,  was  enigmatic,  though 
verbal,  and  would  have  had  no  significance  had  it  come 
much  earlier  in  my  life ;  but  coming  when  it  did,  made  easy 
an  almost  immediate  interpretation  that  is  the  only  significant 
one  which  seems  possible,  and  that  has  been  even  more  valu- 
able than  the  message  in  the  first  dream  interpreted.  This 
interpretation  of  the  second  is  entirely  counter  to  my  pre- 
vious convictions.  The  message  was  repeated  in  various 
terms,  but  hurriedly,  as  if  the  communicator  wanted  to  make 
the  most  of  a  brief  opportunity.  I  remember  but  five  words, 
and  they  could  have  been  uttered  by  any  child,  if  that  child 
had  had  Columbus's  brains  and  his  egg,  all  raised  to  the  nth 
power.  And  yet  reflection  on  those  five  words  has  revolu- 
tionized my  views  on  one  of  the  most  important  perplexities 
of  my  life,  and  my  policy  regarding  it,  and  given  me  addi- 
tional help  to  turn  what  promised  to  be  my  ruinous  defeat 
into  a  moderate  victory,  though  with  enormous  difficulty, 
which  in  itself  has  been  a  source  of  development. 


Ch.  LV]  As  Usual  Best  not  Publishable  923 

Yet,  according  to  the  good  DuPrel,  I  lifted  myself  out  of 
that  quicksand  by  my  bootstraps.  I  hope  you're  not  tired  of 
the  good  old  metaphor  I've  already  used  twice.  There  seems 
much  call  for  it  in  these  regions. 

The  reasons  for  considering  that  this  dream  indicates  the 
survival  of  a  personality  do  not  seem  to  call  for  a  separate 
analysis. 

There  were  other  features — far  the  most  important — that 
I  cannot  tell. 

Those  dreams  contained  evidences  that  satisfy  me  not  only 
of  a  future  life,  but  that  it  is  a  life  superior  to  the  ills  and 
pettiness  of  earth,  with  a  morality  above  the  reach  of  earth, 
and  (Pace  my  Puritan  ancestors!)  a  very  jolly  life;  in  fact, 
in  another  dream  that  goes  far  to  convince  me  of  survival, 
one  of  said  ancestors — a  dearly  loved  one  despite  the  Puri- 
tanism— appeared  to  that  same  purport,  and  in  the  one  situa- 
tion of  my  career — a  very  extraordinary  one — where  before 
the  close  of  the  noble  though  Puritanical  life,  the  ancestor 
would  have  been  least  apt  to  indicate  non-Puritanical  sen- 
timents. 

I  hope  my  necessarily  reticent  confessions  have  not  bored 
you.  They  remind  me  of  an  alleged  novel  I  once  looked 
over,  which,  though  it  was  otherwise  well  enough  written, 
told  merely  the  results  of  the  conversations,  without  giving 
the  conversations  themselves.  What  I  have  been  able  to 
tell  is  Hamlet  with  Hamlet  left  out.  I  would  not  have  told 
as  much  for  a  less  reason  than  a  conviction  of  duty — a  con- 
viction possibly  exaggerated,  and  exaggerated  for  more 
reasons  than  one — not  the  least  being  that  it  may  have  been 
worse  than  useless  to  tell  anything  unless  I  could  tell  all. 
For  the  little  I  can  tell  will  make  the  story  appear  to  many 
as  simply  the  maunderings  of  a  credulous  old  fool,  who  is  the 
victim  of  his  own  doddering  and  perverted  ingenuity.  But 
time  has  proved  that  I  have  been  anything  but  a  victim,  and 
that  if  it  had  not  been  for  those  dreams  I  would  have  been  a 
victim  to  circumstances  and  qualities  of  my  own  far  worse  than 
credulity  and  perverted  ingenuity — least  among  them,  per- 
haps, a  narrow  and  perverted  philosophy  that  was  mainly  a 


924  Dreams  Indicating  Survival  of  Death     [Bk.  Ill 

blind  reaction  from  the  Puritan  dogmatism  that  tried  to  mold, 
and  did  pervert,  my  education. 

As  I  cannot  give  you  the  most  essential  details  of  these 
dreams,  they  may  have  little  weight  beyond  whatever  little 
you  may  attach  to  my  personal  judgment,  and  my  judgment 
is  vitiated  by  an  emotional  bias  in  circumstances  of  great 
complexity  and  difficulty.  I  can  only  repeat  that  the  second 
dream  reversed  some  important  and  well-studied  previous 
opinions,  and  that  the  new  opinions  have  worked.  Yet  per- 
haps bad  reasons  have  reversed  more  than  one  bad  opinion 
and  substituted  good  and  good-working  ones. 

In  being  put  forward  to  account  for  these  things,  the  sub- 
liminal self  is  not  up  to  the  job — at  least  not  the  subliminal 
self  as  an  exclusively  individual  attribute.  Whatever  else  it 
may  be  I  don't  know.  I  am  groping  like  the  rest  of  us — 
or  like  the  protozoon  against  the  beautiful  bather. 

In  the  materialistic  part  of  the  last  century  DuPrel  and 
his  school  reasoned :  "  We  do  know  that  the  self  is  conscious 
and  purposive,  and  we  do  not  know  anything  else  that  is  " — 
any  more  than  the  protozoon  knows  the  bather ! !  So,  rather 
than  go  beyond  what  we  know  (as  if  that  amounted  to 
anything)  they  invented  the  divided  self — not  quite  as  good 
as  the  divided  skirt — which  article,  though  it  has  no  relation 
to  the  facts,  at  least  does  not,  like  Du  Prel's,  oppose  them, 
and  has  some  uses  somewhere. 

I  cannot  believe  that  there's  anything  in  my  individual  con- 
sciousness which  my  experience  or  that  of  my  ancestors  has 
not  placed  there — in  raw  material  at  least;  or  that  in  work- 
ing up  that  raw  material  I  can  exert  any  genius  in  my  some- 
times chaotic  dreams  that  I  cannot  exert  in  my  systematized 
waking  hours.  All  the  people  I  meet  and  talk  with  in  my 
dreams  may  have  been  met  and  talked  with  by  me  or  my 
forebears,  though  I  don't  believe  it;  but  the  works  of  art  I 
see  have  not  been  known  to  me  or  my  ancestors  or  any  other 
mortal;  nor  have  I  any  sign  of  the  genius  to  combine  what- 
ever elements  of  them  I  may  have  seen  into  any  such  designs. 
And  when  in  dreams  other  persons  tell  me  things  contrary  to 
my  firmest  convictions,  in  which  things  I  later  discover  germs 
of  most  important  workable  truth,  the  persons  who  tell  me 


Ch.  LV]  Does  the  Subliminal  Self  Conquer  the  Usual?  925 

that,  and  who  are  different  from  me  as  far  as  fairly  decent 
persons  can  differ  from  each  other,  are  certainly  not,  as  the 
good  DuPrel  would  have  us  believe,  myself.  All  these  things 
are  not  figments  of  my  mind — if  they  are  figments  of  a  mind, 
it's  a  mind  bigger  than  mine.  The  biggest  claim  I  can 
make,  or  assent  to  anybody  else  making,  is  that  my  mind 
is  telepathically  receptive  of  the  product  of  that  greater 
mind  that  includes  ourselves  and  those  we  see  in  our  dreams, 
and  may  be  some  sort  of  telepathic  medium  between  us,  or 
may  connect  us  all  in  some  such  way  as  the  different  parts 
of  our  individual  consciousnesses  are  connected.  This  is  very 
vague,  but  it  may  be  a  true  hint  that  will  grow  clearer  some 
day.  Isn't  it  simplest  to  suppose  that  each  of  us,  in  ways 
that  we  can  but  vaguely  imagine,  is  but  a  manifestation  of 
the  world-soul — that  the  "  plans "  of  us  are  in  it,  as  the 
original  plan  of  the  Parthenon  was  in  the  architect's  mind, 
and  so  that  we,  living,  and  even  "  dead,"  can,  by  its  inflow 
under  circumstances  so  far  exceptional — such  as  permit  some 
rare  dreams,  be  brought  into  communion  with  each  other  ? 

We  cannot  imagine  a  world-soul  without,  so  far  as  our 
powers  go,  imagining  it  to  contain  everything.  But  on  these 
hypotheses,  when  James  said  that  through  the  mediums  we 
get  only  the  debris,  he  for  the  moment  left  out  of  considera- 
tion much  that  has  appeared,  and  that  even  if,  through  some 
channels,  and  at  most  times,  we  get  only  debris,  through  other 
channels,  and  at  rare  times,  we  certainly  get  things  of 
supreme  significance. 

Mrs.  Piper's  expressions  in  the  waking  state  generally  in- 
dicate that  she  is  returning  from  a  bright  and  attractive 
world  to  one  that  by  comparison  seems  dark  and  repulsive. 
She  often  says,  "  Dark !  dark ! "  and  calls  the  friends  around 
her  negroes.  Her  trance  state  is  not  the  only  dream  state 
presenting  some  such  contrasts.  Ordinary  dreams  generally 
present  Conditions  much  more  attractive  than  the  waking  life, 
including  what  often  appears  to  be  communication  with  those 
who  have  passed  beyond  death.  Now  if  Mrs.  Piper's  dream 
state  is  really  one  of  communication  with  souls  who  have 
passed  into  a  new  life,  dream  states  generally  may  not  ex- 
travagantly be  supposed  to  be  foretastes  of  that  life.  And 


926  Dreams  Indicating  Survival  of  Death     [Bk.  Ill 

so  far  as  concerns  their  desirability,  why  should  they  not  be  ? 

If  we  are,  at  death,  to  enter  the  dream  life  stripped  of  its 
absurdities,  I  confess  that  for  one  I  rather  like  the  prospect. 
After  a  long  life  containing  at  least  the  average  share  of 
the  ordinary  human  experiences — especially  the  "  practical  " 
experiences  not  frequent  with  most  of  those  who  dream  dreams 
and  write  books — I  incline  to  hold  the  dream  life,  in  pro- 
portion to  its  share  of  hours,  more  interesting  than  the  waking 
life.  This  of  course  means  my  dream  life:  perhaps  I  have 
had  more  than  my  share,  and  I  understand  that  some  people 
have  none  at  all.  The  dream  life  is  free  from  the  trammels 
of  our  waking  environment  and  powers.  In  it  we  experience 
unlimited  histories  in  an  instant ;  roam  over  unlimited  spaces ; 
see,  hear,  feel,  touch,  taste,  smell,  enjoy  unlimited  things; 
walk,  swim,  fly,  change  things  with  unlimited  speed ;  do  things 
with  unlimited  power;  make  what  we  will — music,  poetry, 
objects  of  art,  situations,  dramas,  with  unlimited  faculty,  and 
enjoy  unlimited  society.  Unless  we  have  eaten  too  much,  or 
I  otherwise  got  ourselves  out  of  order  in  the  waking  life,  in 
the  dream  life  we  seldom  if  ever  know  what  it  is  to  be  too 
late  for  anything,  or  too  far  from  anything;  we  freely  fall 
from  chimneys  or  precipices,  and  I  suppose  it  will  soon  be 
aeroplanes,  with  no  worse  consequences  than  comfortably 
waking  up  into  the  everyday  world;  we  sometimes  solve  the 
problems  which  baffle  us  here;  we  see  more  beautiful  things 
than  we  see  here;  and,  far  above  all,  we  resume  the  ties  that 
are  broken  here. 

The  indications  seem  to  be  that  if  we  ever  get  the  hang  of 
that  life,  we  can  have  pretty  much  what  we  like,  and  eliminate 
what  we  don't  like— continue  what  we  enjoy,  and  stop  what 
we  suffer — find  no  bars  to  congeniality,  or  compulsion  to 
boredom.  To  good  dreamers  it  is  unnecessary  to  offer  proof 
of  any  of  these  assertions,  and  to  prove  them  to  others  is 
impossible. 

The  dream  life  contains  so  much  more  beauty,  so  much 
fuller  emotion,  and  such  wider  reaches  than  the  waking  life, 
that  one  is  tempted  to  regard  it  as  the  real  life,  to  which  the 
waking  life  is  somehow  a  necessary  preliminary.  So  orthodox 
believers  regard  the  life  after  death  as  the  real  life:  yet 
most  of  their  hopes  regarding  that  life — even  the  strongest 


Ch.  LV]    The  Dream  Life  Surpasses  the  'Waking  927 

hope  of  rejoining  lost  loved  ones — are  realized  here  during 
the  brief  throbs  of  the  dream  life. 

There  seems  to  be  no  happiness  from  association  in  our 
ordinary  life  which  is  not  obtainable,  by  some  people  at  least, 
from  association  in  the  dream  life.  It  may  be  known  by  but 
few  people,  and  with  them  may  be  but  rare  and  fragmentary. 
But  if  it  exists,  as  it  does,  to  this  extent,  between  incarnate  A 
and  postcarnate  B,  why  should  it  not  exist  between  postcarnate 
A  and  postcarnate  B,  and  to  a  degree  vastly  more  clear  and 
abiding  than  during  the  present  discrepancy  between  the  in- 
carnate and  postcarnate  conditions  ? 

This  of  course  assumes,  and  I  don't  think  the  assumption 
strained,  that  B's  appearance  in  A's  dream  life,  just  as  he 
appeared  on  earth  (though,  as  I  know  to  be  the  case,  usually 
wiser,  healthier,  jollier,  and  more  lovable  generally),  is  some- 
thing more  than  a  mild  attack  of  dyspepsia  on  the  part 
of  A. 

Dreams  do  not  seem  to  abound  in  work,  and  are  often 
said  not  to  abound  in  morality,  but  I  know  that  they  sometimes 
do — in  morality  higher  than  any  attainable  in  our  waking 
life.  Certainly  the  scant  vague  indications  from  the  dream 
suggestions  of  a  future  life  do  not  necessarily  preclude  abun- 
dant work  and  morality,  any  more  than  work  and  sundry 
self-denials  are  precluded  on  a  holiday  because  one  does  not 
happen  to  perform  them.  Moreover,  the  hoped-for  future 
conditions  may  not  contain  the  necessities  for  either  labor  or 
self-restraint  that  present  conditions  do:  there  may  not  be 
the  same  dangers  there  as  here,  in  the  dolce  far  niente,  or  in 
Platonic  friendships. 

Yet,  despite  the  accidents  and  miscarriages,  life  in  a  good 
body  is  usually  good  enough  here;  and  if  any  just  notion  of 
a  second  existence  comes  through  our  dreams,  including  those 
of  the  mediums,  it  is  very  much  the  same  sort  of  life  there, 
only  expanded,  and  with  a  future  flooded  in  light,  in  place 
of  an  end  in  darkness. 

Men  are  not  consistent  in  their  attitude  regarding  dreams. 
They  admit  the  dream  state  to  be  ideal— constantly  use  such 
expressions  as  "  A  dream  of  loveliness,"  "  Happier  than  I 


928  Dreams  Indicating  Survival  of  Death     [Bk.  Ill 

could  even  dream,"  "  Surpasses  my  fondest  dreams,"  and  yet 
on  the  other  hand  they  call  its  experience  "  but  the  baseless 
vision  of  a  dream."  What  do  they  mean  by  "baseless"? 
Certainly  it  is  not  lack  of  vividness  or  emotional  intensity. 
It  is  probably  the  lack  of  duration  in  the  happy  experiences, 
and  of  the  possibility  of  remembering  them,  and,  still  more, 
of  repeating  them  at  will.  It  is  not  vividness  in  the  life  itself 
that  is  lacking,  but  vividness  in  our  memories  of  it.  James 
defines  our  waking  personality  as  the  stream  of  consciousness  : 
the  dream  life  gives  no  such  stream.  To-night  does  not  con- 
tinue last  night  as  to-day  continues  yesterday.  The  dream 
life  is  not  like  a  stream,  but  more  like  a  series,  though  hardly 
organic  enough  to  be  a  series,  of  disconnected  pools,  many 
of  them  as  enchanting,  perhaps  more  enchanting,  than  any 
parts  of  the  waking  stream,  but  not,  like  that  stream,  an 
organic  whole  with  motion  toward  definite  results,  and  power 
to  attain  them.  But  suppose  the  dream  life  continuous,  and 
under  direction  toward  definite  ends,  at  least  so  far  as  the 
waking  life  is,  and  still  free  from  the  trammels  of  the  waking 
life — suppose  us  to  have  at  least  as  much  power  to  secure  its 
joys  and  avoid  its  terrors  as  we  have  regarding  those  of  the 
waking  life,  and  suppose  death  is  proved  the  old  humbug 
it  often  seems,  for  which  earlier  priests  are  largely  responsible. 
What  more  can  we  manage  to  want?  For  one,  I  would  in- 
finitely prefer  my  dream  life  to  any  fancied  heaven  I  know 
of,  at  least  before  the  one  shown  by  Mrs.  Piper's  controls, 
certainly  to  the  ridiculous  one  in  the  fancies  of  most  of  our 
recent  ancestors  and  many  of  our  contemporaries. 

There  have  been  no  happier,  more  significant,  or  more  fruit- 
ful moments  in  my  whole  life  than  some  of  my  dream  mo- 
ments, and  none  whatever  that  so  opened  my  mind  to  an 
apparently  transcendent  wisdom  and  morality ;  and  if  there  is  a 
life  after  dying  like  the  life  after  going  to  sleep,  I'd  at  least  as 
willingly  enter  one  as  the  other.  This  of  course  means  so  far 
only  as  concerns  the  life,  and  leaves  out  of  account  the  sunder- 
ing of  the  ties  with  those  remaining  in  this  life.  But  against 
that  is  to  be  offset  resumption  of  all  ties,  present  and  past,  in 
the  new  life,  just  as  they  are  at  moments  resumed  in  the  dream 
life,  and  with  the  discipline  of  separation  to  make  them  nearer 
perfect. 


Ch.  LV]         Dreams  Strongest  Cosmic  Inflow  929 

The  suggestion  has  come  to  more  than  one  student,  and 
to  me  very  strongly,  that  when  we  enter  into  life — as  sperma- 
tozoa, or  star  dust,  if  you  please — we  enter  into  the  eternal 
life,  but  that  the  physical  conditions  essential  to  our  develop- 
ment into  appreciating  it  are  a  sort  of  veil  between  it  and 
our  consciousness.  In  our  waking  life  we  know  it  only 
through  the  veil;  but  when  in  sleep  or  trance,  the  material 
environment  is  removed  from  consciousness,  the  veil  becomes 
that  much  thinner,  and  we  get  better  glimpses  of  the  tran- 
scendent reality. 

Does  it  not  seem  then  as  if,  in  dreams,  we  enter  upon  our 
closer  relation  with  the  hyper-phenomenal  mind  ?  All  sorts  of 
things  seem  to  be  in  it,  from  the  veriest  trifles  and  absurdities 
up  to  the  highest  things  our  minds  can  receive,  and  presumably 
an  infinity  of  things  higher  still.  They  appear  to  flow  into  us 
in  all  sorts  of  ways,  presumably  depending  upon  the  condition 
of  the  nerve  apparatus  through  which  they  flow.  If  it  is  out 
of  gear  from  any  disorder  or  injury,  what  it  receives  is  not  only 
trifling,  but  often  grotesque  and  painful ;  while  if  it  is  in  good 
estate,  it  often  receives  things  far  surpassing  in  beauty  and 
wisdom  those  of  our  waking  phenomenal  world. 

Apparently  every  dreamer  is  a  medium  for  this  flow,  but 
dreamers  vary  immensely  in  their  capacity  to  receive  it — from 
Hodge,  who  dreams  only  when  he  has  eaten  too  much,  or  Pro- 
fessor Gradgrind  who  never  dreams  at  all,  up  to  Mrs.  Thomp- 
son and  Mrs.  Piper. 

But  it  is  not  only  Professor  Gradgrind  who  never  dreams. 
Only  the  other  night  I  was  surprised  to  learn  from  two  of  the 
leading  members  of  the  S.  P.  R. — men  of  wide  open  minds, 
and  patient  investigators,  whose  contributions  to  the  Proceed- 
ings are  important,  that  they  virtually  never  dream  at  all. 
Apparently  the  dream  faculty  in  its  ordinary  forms  is  no  more 
a  constant  attendant  upon  any  other  qualities  or  degrees  of 
character  or  culture  that  we  can  posit,  than  mediumship  is.  I 
have  just  heard  of  a  second  clear  and  strong  case  of  medium- 
ship  in  an  old  negress. 

It  looks  as  if  all  mediums  were  dreamers,  and  all  dreamers, 
mediums.  The  dreams  vary,  among  other  particulars,  in  fre- 
quency, intensity,  readiness  in  which  the  dreamers  enter  the 
dream-state,  and  the  degree  in  which  the  dreamer's  individu- 


930  Dreams  Indicating  Survival  of  Death     [Bk.  Ill 

ality  is  merged  into  those  of  the  dream-personages.  In  ordi- 
nary dreams  there  is  no  merging ;  in  the  dreams  of  the  highly 
sensitive,  the  merging  seems  virtually  complete — the  dreamer 
thinks,  talks,  writes,  acts  as  the  control.  Mrs.  Piper  becomes 
Phinuit  or  G.  P.  or  any  one  of  numerous  others.  Mrs.  Thomp- 
son becomes  Nellie,  Mrs.  Verrall  and  Mrs.  Holland  write  as 
various  persons,  and  sign  the  names  of  such  persons. 

As  oft  remarked,  dreams  generally  are  nonsense,  but  some 
dreams,  or  parts  of  some  dreams,  are  perhaps  the  most  sig- 
nificant things  we  know — unless  we  gauge  significance  by 
financial  standards,  or  at  least  by  time,  space,  matter,  motion, 
and  force.  But  it  looks  very  much  as  if  those  dreams  were 
in  a  life  where  there  is  no  need  of  money,  no  moth  or  rust  or 
thieves,  no  limitations  of  time  or  space  or  matter  or  motion 
or  force,  and  yet  a  life  that,  though  we  now  know  it  only  by 
glimpses,  is  sometime  to  be  open  to  all  of  us  always. 


CHAPTEE  LVI 
FINAL  SUMMARY 

Now  to  sum  up  the  bearing  of  all  that  we  have  been  over, 
upon  our  Cosmic  Eelations. 

However  we  interpret  it,  those  relations  are  certainly  wider, 
at  least  among  living  men,  than  they  were  a  generation  ago. 
Whether  they  are  longer  than  they  then  appeared  to  many, 
is  not  so  clear. 

Many  people  of  exceptional  intelligence  and  even  exceptional 
skepticism  have  taken  from  the  sittings  the  conviction  that 
they  have  conversed  with  friends  who  had  left  their  mortal 
bodies  and  who  were  happy  in  a  continued  intelligent  and 
active  existence  free  from  the  infirmities  of  the  earthly  life  we 
know;  reacting  with  the  universe  much  as  they  reacted  here, 
only  more  widely ;  surrounded  by  those  whom  they  had  loved 
and  lost;  watching  over  those  they  had  left  behind,  and  ex- 
ultantly happy  in  being  able  to  communicate  with  them,  and 
expecting  to  rejoin  them.  But  the  records  contain  nothing 
more — nothing  to  relieve  man  from  the  blessed  necessity  of 
eating  his  bread,  intellectual  as  well  as  material,  in  the 
sweat  of  his  brow;  and,  perhaps  more  important  still,  little 
to  make  the  interests  or  responsibilities  of  this  life  weaker 
because  of  any  realized  inferiority  to  those  of  a  possible  later 
life. 

It  would  apparently  be  inconsistent  in  Nature,  or  God,  if 
you  prefer,  to  start  our  evolution  under  earthly  conditions, 
educating  us  in  knowledge  and  character  through  labor  and 
suffering,  but  at  the  same  time  throwing  open  to  our  percep- 
tions, from  another  life,  a  wider  range  of  knowledge  and  char- 
acter attainable  without  labor  or  suffering. 

I  have  no  time  or  space  or  inclination  to  argue  with  those 
who  deny  a  plan  in  Nature.  He  who  does,  probably  lives 
away  from  Nature.  It  appears  to  have  been  a  part  of  that 
plan  that  for  a  long  time  past  most  of  us  should  "  believe  in  " 

931 


932  Final  Summary  [Bk.  Ill 

immortality,  and  that,  at  least  until  very  lately,  none  of  us 
should  know  anything  about  it.  Confidence  in  immortality 
has  been  a  dangerous  thing.  So  far,  we  haven't  all  made  a 
very  good  use  of  it.  Many  of  the  people  who  have  had  most  of 
it  and  busied  themselves  most  with  it,  so  to  speak,  have  largely 
transferred  their  interests  to  the  other  life,  and  neglected 
and  abused  this  one.  "  Other-worldliness  "  is  a  well-named 
vice,  and  positive  evidence  of  immortality  might  be  more 
dangerous  than  mere  confidence  in  it. 

In  line  with  the  suggestion  that  interest  in  another  world 
competes  with  life  here,  I  have  been  struck  with  a  remarkable 
circumstance  that  may  be  significant  or  merely  accidental. 
The  early  active  members  of  the  S.  P.  R.  were  Moses,  Gurney, 
Sidgwick,  Myers,  Barrett,  Lodge,  Crookes,  Hodgson,  Pod- 
more,  and  James.  Barrett,  Lodge,  and  Crookes  are  given  to 
Physical  Science,  and  with  them  the  mediumistic  and  specula- 
tive business  was  a  side  issue.  They  survive  full  of  years  and 
honors.  Of  the  others,  every  man  is  dead,  and  not  one  of  them 
reached  his  three  score  years  and  ten. 

Perhaps  I  may  properly  add  that  of  all  the  work  I  have 
ever  attempted  (except  mathematics  beyond  my  capacity,  and 
that  portion  of  what  is  called  philosophy  which  may  be 
equally  so,  but  which  seems  to  me  mere  word-mongering) ,  I 
have  found  no  work  so  trying  as  the  psychic  portions  of  this 
book:  the  sense  of  doubt  and  insecurity  that  haunts  almost 
every  sentence  makes  writing,  and  especially  revision,  im- 
measurably more  anxious  and  laborious  than  I  ever  knew  them 
in  any  other  connection.  While  the  study  of  recognized  evolu- 
tion and  telekinesis  was  a  pleasure,  the  sense  of  labor  came  and 
increased  as  I  progressed  toward  the  questions  of  the  other  life. 
James  wrote  somewhere  "that  at  times  he  had  come  absolutely 
to  hate  the  whole  thing.  I  would  often  have  felt  the  same 
way,  but  for  some  experiences  that  James  did  not  have,  and  in 
revising  the  proofs  I  realize  that -I  have  at  last  come  occa- 
sionally to  share  the  feeling.  After  a  longer  confinement  to 
the  work  than  you  are  apt  to  suppose,  my  desire  to  get  back  to 
the  studies  of  our  usual  life  is  like  the  desire  to  get  from  the 
fog  into  the  sunlight. 

All  this,  I  think,  supports  the  notion  that  whatever,  if  any- 
thing, is  in  store  for  us  beyond  this  life,  it  would  be  a  self- 


Ch.  LVI]    Effect  of  Spiritism  on  Myers  and  Hodgson    933 

destructive  scheme  of  things  (or  Scheme  of  Things,  if  you 
prefer)  that  would  throw  the  future  life  into  farther  com- 
petition with  our  interests  here,  at  least  before  we  are  farther 
evolved  here.  For  one,  while  I  am  glad  to  be  confident  of  the 
after  life,  I  am  perfectly  content  to  wait  patiently  for  fuller 
knowledge,  and  for  the  reconciliation  of  what  appear  to  be  the 
main  probabilities  with  whatever  appears  inconsistent  with 
them. 

How  much  these  studies  did  to  kill  their  leading  devotees 
before  old  age,  I  don't  know.  Neither  do  I  know  that  such  a 
result  was  not  the  best  possible  reward  of  their  devotion. 
Hodgson  at  least  believed  that  it  would  be.  It  all  calls  to  mind 
the  relation  of  martyrdom  to  earlier  religions. 

So  much  for  the  effect  of  their  labors.  As  to  the  effect  of 
their  faiths,  James  says  (Memories  and  Studies,  194-5) : 

"  When  I  hear  good  people  say  (as  they  often  say,  not  without 
show  of  reason),  that  dabbling  in  such  phenomena  reduces  us  to 
a  sort  of  jelly,  disintegrates  the  critical  faculties,  liquefies  the 
character,  and  makes  of  one  a  gobe-mouche  generally,  I  console 
myself  by  thinking  of  my  friends  Frederic  Myers  and  Richard 
Hodgson.  These  men  lived  exclusively  for  psychical  research, 
and  it  converted  both  to  spiritism.  Hodgson  would  have  been  a 
man  among  men  anywhere;  but  I  doubt  whether  under  any 
other  baptism  he  would  have  been  that  happy,  sober,  and  right- 
eous form  of  energy  which  his  face  proclaimed  him  in  his  later 
years,  when  heart  and  head  alike  were  wholly  satisfied  by  his 
occupation.  Myers'  character  also  grew  stronger  in  every  par- 
ticular for  his  devotion  to  the  same  inquiries.  Brought  up  on 
literature  and  sentiment,  something  of  a  courtier,  passionate 
and  disdainful,  and  impatient  naturally,  he  was  made  over 
again  from  the  day  when  he  took  up  psychical  research  seri- 
ously. He  became  learned  in  science,  circumspect,  democratic 
in  sympathy,  endlessly  patient,  and  above  all,  happy.  The  forti- 
tude of  his  last  hours  touched  the  heroic,  so  completely  were  the 
atrocious  sufferings  of  his  body  cast  into  insignificance  by  his 
interest  in  the  cause  he  lived  for.  When  a  man's  pursuit  grad- 
ually makes  his  face  shine  and  grow  handsome,  you  may  be  sure 
it  is  a  worthy  one.  Both  Hodgson  and  Myers  kept  growing  ever 
handsomer  and  stronger-looking." 

But  nevertheless  they  died  before  their  time — a  case  of  love 
of  the  gods,  perhaps. 

As  this  is  the  last  we  shall  see  of  James  in  this  book,  I  will 
say  here  one  thing  that  has  been  vainly  waiting  for  a  place. 


934:  Final  Summary  [Bk.  Ill 

I  frequently  hear  it  asserted  that  if  James  survives,  he  would 
be  more  apt  to  communicate  than  anybody  else.  I  don't  think 
so.  Since  some  time  before  his  death  Mrs.  Piper  has  not 
been  at  her  best,  and  there  is  no  other  medium  so  favorably 
developed.  Moreover,  on  the  spiritistic  hypothesis,  of  the 
three  leading  controls  I  should  consider  Myers  more  apt,  and 
Hodgson  and  George  Pelham  much  more  apt,  to  communi- 
cate than  James,  and  I  knew  the  men  well — all  but  Myers 
very  well.  But  guesses  upon  this  point  have  as  yet  very 
little  to  go  upon,  and  my  wisdom  is  at  best  that  of  hind- 
sight. 

Since  James's  death  there  has  been  a  lot  of  frightful  drivel 
professing  to  come  from  him  through  various  alleged  medi- 
ums, and  possibly  some  genuine  ones.  There  has  been  nothing, 
however,  which  the  S.  P.  E.  has  yet  published;  but  Dr. 
Hyslop  has  published  a  good  deal  in  Pr.  Am.  S.  P.  K.,  VI, 
and  a  summary  of  it  in  Journal  VI,  where  the  student  can 
find  it.  It  is  of  little  interest  to  anybody  else:  therefore  I 
do  not  reproduce  any  of  it.  I  am  not,  however,  prepared 
absolutely  to  dissent  from  Professor  Hyslop's  evident  opinion 
that  it  is  worthy  of  the  student's  attention.  James's  make-up 
was  so  dominated  by  his  magnificent  intellect  that,  again  on 
the  spiritistic  hypothesis,  I  would  not  expect  him  to  be  as 
effective  a  communicator  as  one  in  whom  the  emotions  had 
more  swing :  little  children,  who  are  all  emotion,  are  the  best 
of  the  ostensible  communicators. 

By  the  way,  I  seem  to  have  read  of  an  authority  generally 
considered,  in  Christendom,  the  highest,  who  said  some- 
thing about  little  children  very  congruous  with  this  circum- 
stance. 

Now  looking  at  history  by  and  large,  we  children  have 
not  generally  been  trusted  with  edge  tools  before  we  had  grown 
to  some  sort  of  capacity  to  handle  them.  If  the  Mesopota- 
mians  or  Egyptians  or  Greeks  or  Romans  had  had  gunpowder, 
it  looks  as  if  they  would  have  blown  most  of  themselves  and 
each  other  out  of  existence,  and  the  rest  back  into  primitive 
savagery,  and  stayed  there  until  the  use  of  gunpowder  became 
one  of  the  lost  arts.  But  the  new  knowledge  of  evolution 
has  given  the  modern  world  a  new  intellectual  interest;  and 


Ch.  LVI]    Readiness  and  Need  for  New  Developments    935 

the  new  altruism,  a  new  moral  one.  The  reasons  for  doing 
one's  best  in  this  life,  and  doing  it  actively,  are  so  much 
stronger  and  clearer  than  they  were  when  so  many  good  people 
could  fall  into  asceticism  and  other-worldliness,  that  perhaps 
we  are  now  fit  to  be  trusted  with  proofs  of  an  after  life.  It 
is  very  suggestive  that  these  apparent  proofs  came  contempo- 
raneously with  the  new  knowledge  tending  to  make  them  safe ; 
and  equally  suggestive  that  it  is  when  we  have  begun  to 
suffer  from  certain  breakdowns  in  religion,  that  we  have  been 
provided  with  new  material  for  bracing  it  up. 

At  the  opposite  extreme,  it  also  is  suggestive  that  these 
new  indications  that  our  present  life  is  a  petty  thing  beside 
a  future  one,  have  come  just  when  modern  science  has  so 
increased  our  control  over  material  nature  that  we  are  in 
danger  of  having  our  interest  in  higher  things  buried  beneath 
material  interests,  and  enervated  by  over-indulgence  in 
material  delights. 

If  it  be  true  that,  roughly  speaking,  we  are  not  entrusted 
with  dangerous  things  before  we  are  evolved  to  the  point  where 
we  can  keep  their  danger  within  bounds,  the  fact  that  we 
have  not  until  very  lately,  if  yet,  been  entrusted  with  any 
verification  of  the  dream  of  the  survival  of  bodily  death 
would  seem  to  confer  upon  the  spiritistic  interpretation  of 
the  recent  apparent  verifications,  a  pragmatic  sanction — an 
accidental  embryo  pun  over  which  the  historic  student  is 
welcome  to  a  smile,  and  which,  since  the  preceding  clause 
was  written,  I  have  seen  used  in  all  seriousness  by  Professor 
Giddings.  Conclusive  or  not,  that  "  sanction  "  is  certainly  an 
addition  to  the  arguments  that  existed  before,  including  the 
general  argument  from  evolution.  And,  so  far  as  the  phe- 
nomena go  to  establish  the  spiritistic  hypothesis,  surely  they 
are  not  to  be  lightly  regarded  because  as  yet  they  do  not 
establish  it  more  conclusively. 

Now  let  us  sum  up  the  statements  of  the  alleged  person- 
alities in  the  dreams  of  the  sensitives,  or  in  our  own,  re- 
garding their  alleged  life  after  leaving  the  body.  For  con- 
venience of  statement  I  will,  as  before,  generally  assume  the 
alleged  personalities  to  be  real,  and  the  alleged  statements 
to  be  actually  made  by  them.  But,  as  hitherto,  this  is  pro- 
visional assumption,  not  assertion  of  opinion. 


936  Final  Summary  [Bk.  Ill 

As  already  indicated,  they  give  little  knowledge  of  details. 
The  only  new  statements  of  any  consequence  are  that  they 
still  exist,  with  very  much  their  old  characters  and  interests. 
Whatever  new  kinds  of  interests  are  added  to  them,  they  not 
only  do  not  tell  us,  but  say  they  cannot.  Whatever  assurances 
of  immortality  the  System  of  Things  may  permit  them  to  give 
us,  the  System  still  seems  to  provide  that,  aside  from  that 
consolation  and  inspiration,  the  knowledge  which  makes  this 
life  here  worth  living  must  be  discovered  by  ourselves. 

There  are,  however,  some  details  of  their  alleged  postcarnate 
life,  which,  while  not  providing  us  with  the  philosopher's 
stone  or  any  other  short  cut  to  knowledge  or  happiness,  add 
to  the  interest  and  perhaps  the  probability  of  the  alleged  future 
life.  At  the  cost  of  repetition  let  us  summarize  them. 
The  communications  involve  the  following  apparent  condi- 
tions : 

I.  To  begin  at  the  beginning,  many  of  the  alleged  dis- 
carnate  personages  say,  and  no  one  of  them  contradicts,  that 
they  enter  the  new  life  in  a  weak  and  dazed  condition  result- 
ing from   the  enfeeblement  and  physical   strain  preceding 
death,   and   that  it  takes  time  to   recover   strength — even 
strength  to  "  communicate  " — just  as  it  takes  time  to  recover 
strength    after    depressions    and    shocks   survived    "in    the 
body/' 

II.  This  is  their  usual  expression  for  the  earthly  life — thia 
or  some  similar  one  contrasting  their  alleged  disembodied 
state  with  earthly  conditions.     They  seldom,  if  ever,  express 
any  contrast,  in  terms,  between  "life"  and  "death."     The 
process  of  death  they  generally  speak  of  as  "passing  over," 
"entering  this  [their]  life"  and  similar  phrases.     Yet  they 
claim  new  bodies,  and  speak  of  fatigue  in  communicating,  and 
even  "  need  of  air."    Yet  outside  of  liability  to  that  fatigue, 
physical  infirmities  and  pains  no  longer  exist ;  the  reminiscent 
ones   are,   generally  but  by  no   means  always,   manifested 
through  the  medium's  body  for  alleged  evidential  purposes. 
This  does  not  seem  concurrent  with  fatigue  of  the  medium. 

III.  In  one  particular  the  possibilities  of  this  life  are  most 
happily  expanded  in  ways  that  we  can  easily  appreciate,  and 
that  give  us  wide  conceptions  of  a  rational  heaven:  for  the 
emancipated  ones  seem  to  enjoy  the  cosmic  memory.     The 


Ch.  LVI]     Mediumistic  Views  of  Future  Life  937 

expanded  memory,  however,  seems  to  relate  only  to  significant 
experiences,  but  not  to  unimportant  names  of  persons  or 
things:  otherwise  the  memory  is  usually  much  fuller  in  the 
communicating  personalities  than  in  their  friends  here  who 
participated  in  the  same  experiences. 

IV.  Whatever  the  new  opportunities  may  be,  it  seems  that, 
the  more  intelligence  and  character  have  been  developed  here, 
the  more  able  they  are  to  use  the  new  opportunities. 

V.  That  life  seems  virtually  superior  to  the  limitations 
of  space  and  time.     The  communicators  can  generally  summon 
each  other  and  communicate  with  us,  almost  instantaneously, 
regardless  of  what,  to  us,  is  distance. 

VI.  The  personality  there  seems  able  to  manifest  itself 
as  it  was  at  any  stage  of  its  experience.     Children  manifest 
themselves  as  such,  and  also  as  having  grown  up  since  they 
departed.    I  have  myself  had  a  dream  vision  of  a  young  adult 
still  young  twenty  odd  years  after  departure ;  and  shortly  after, 
another  vision  of  the  same  adult  with  more  aged  voice  and  the 
change  in  the  hair  that  twenty  years  here  would  have  produced. 

VII.  The  life  is  a  continuance,  with  a  mere  interruption  at 
death,  of  the  life  here,  though  probably  with  additions  not 
absolutely  unlike  those  which  new  experience,  opportunities, 
and  outlooks  give  to  the  life  here.     The  intellectual  and  emo- 
tional processes  continue  as  here,  only  greatly  facilitated ;  but 
with  what  additions  we  are  not  permitted,  presumably  not 
able,  to  know. 

How  much  weight  is  to  be  attached  to  the  fact  that  these 
manifestations  bring  before  men  for  the  first  time  an  under- 
standable and  rational  heaven?  The  heavens  we  have  had 
before  have  not  only  been  inconsistent  with  the  universe  as 
we  know  it  and  with  themselves,  and  absolutely  unthinkable, 
in  connection  with  established  knowledge,  but  were  generally 
sublimations  of  national  or  sectarian  characteristics  that 
were,  like  anything  else,  admirable  only  so  far  as  they  were 
Dot  exaggerated.  The  contemplative  virtues  of  India  were 
exaggerated  into  the  stagnation  of  Nirvana.  The  Greek 
civilization  being  based  on  slavery,  they  naturally  made  their 
heaven  for  their  Gods  alone,  and  consigned  mere  man  to  a 
very  shadowy  sort  of  future.  The  polygamous  habits  of 
Islam  were  exaggerated  into  the  persistent  orgies  of  the 


938  Final  Summary  [Bk.  Ill 

Mahometan  paradise ;  and  what  shall  we  say,  without  treading 
on  somebody's  toes,  of  the  various  Christian  ideals  of  heaven, 
ranging  all  the  way  from  Fra  Angelico's  pretty  stage  pictures 
down  to  a  perpetual  camp-meeting  ?  Hell  we  will  leave  out 
of  the  account.  The  new  view  has  no  place  for  it.  One  thing 
may  be  said  probably  with  general  acceptance — that  with  the 
creation  of  the  old  ideals,  Christ  himself  had  very  little  to  do. 

The  post-mortem  life,  then,  indicated  to  us  by  the  alleged 
participators  in  it,  is  simply  this  life  with  all  its  healthy  in- 
terests expanded,  and  relieved  of  many  of  its  limitations  and 
its  pains.  Naturally  the  conditions  are  pronounced  to  a  large 
degree  inexplicable  to  us,  but  so  far  as  we  understand  our 
own  life,  we  can  understand  that  one,  and  it  has  a  most  edify- 
ing congeniality  with  each  man's  taste,  instead  of  the  uniform- 
ity of  each  previous  general  conception,  which  to  the  holders 
of  the  other  conceptions  is  generally  loathsome.  Sweden- 
borg,  who  can  be  regarded  as  a  precursor  of  the  present  indi- 
cations, and  who  was  unquestionably  mediumistic,  whatever 
that  may  ultimately  be  found  to  "mean,"  was  perhaps  the 
most  conspicuous  generalizer  for  any  civilized  world,  of  the 
Indian's  very  natural  and  rational  idea  of  a  happy  hunting 
ground.  Swedenborg's  notion  I  know  only  at  second  hand, 
and  it  would  ill  accord  with  my  idea  of  heaven  that  I  should 
ever  dig  it  out  at  first  hand,  though  some  people  whom  I 
esteem  most  heartily  read  him  habitually.  But  I  was  merely 
told  long  ago,  by  one  of  his  more  moderately  educated  fol- 
lowers, that  he  taught  that  each  man  would  do  in  heaven 
what  he  does  here — that  the  spirit  of  the  blacksmith  would 
forge  the  spirit  of  the  iron ;  the  spirit  of  the  carpenter  would 
fashion  the  spirit  of  the  wood,  and  so  on.  I  can  readily 
presume  that  what  he  actually  taught  was  more  nearly  that 
each  man  would  do  there  what  he  wants  to  do  here.  Keep 
that  within  the  bounds  of  rational  desire,  and  it  would  prob- 
ably make  the  best  and  least  improbable  heaven  that  has  been 
turned  out  yet.  Well,  that's  just  about  the  heaven  of  the 
controls,  from  that  of  Swedenborg  down  to  that  of  Mrs. 
Piper,  and  though  they  may  not  be  very  good  authorities, 
I  don't  know  where  to  look  for  better  ones. 

It  would  not  be  a  real  heaven  for  Phinuit  if  he  could  not 
prescribe  for  people  and  swear  at  them  a  little,  and  be  good 


Gh.  LVI]       A  Heaven  of  Satisfied  Longings  939 

to  children;  or  for  Imperator  if  he  couldn't  indulge  his 
amiable  orotundities ;  or  for  Myers  if  he  could  not  quote 
the  classics  a  little  more  than  most  of  us  can  enjoy;  or  for 
good  old  Hodgson  if  he  couldn't  blow  into  a  room  like  a 
breeze  that  would  make  the  papers  fly ;  or  for  George  Pelham 
if  he  couldn't  help  his  friends  a  shade  beyond  their  need. 
Allowing  each  individual  a  little  more  elbow  room  than  the 
strictest  symmetries  would  require,  such  a  life  has  the 
supreme  merit,  which  I  hope  to  be  pardoned  for  expressing 
in  the  only  phrase  that  really  satisfies,  that  it  has  no  damned 
nonsense  about  it.  I  have  thus  ventured  to  introduce  the 
most  dynamic  word  in  the  language  into  society  from  which 
superstitions  have  long  banished  it,  for  more  reasons  than 
one.  Whatever  nonsense  there  may  be  in  the  life  depicted  by 
the  controls,  damnation  is  not  a  part  of  it — Lazarus  does  not 
there  gloat  over  the  sufferings  of  Dives.  So  far  as  I  recall, 
no  medium  reported  in  the  Pr.  S.  P.  K.  later  than  Stainton 
Moses  gives  any  indication  of  malevolent  forces  in  the 
spiritual  world,  and  the  alleged  Moses  in  Professor  Newbold's 
sittings  confessed  himself  as  having  in  life  unconsciously 
colored  with  his  own  mistaken  beliefs,  the  alleged  communi- 
cations through  him  indicative  of  malevolent  spirits. 

It  is  remarkable  how  uniformly  kind  and  gentle  the  other 
reported  communications  generally  are.  As  an  illustration, 
while  G.  P.  was  living  I  occasionally  saw  in  him  a  very 
sharp  positiveness,  and  also  credited  him  with  a  born  aris- 
tocrat's Horatian  hatred  for  the  crowd;  moreover,  I  did  not 
regard  him  as  particularly  apt  to  put  himself  out  for  anybody 
he  was  not  personally  fond  of ;  but  the  communications  from 
his  alleged  surviving  personality  show  him,  while  abounding 
in  other  characteristics  of  the  man  as  his  friends  here  knew 
him,  as  having  gained  in  the  alleged  other  life  an  almost 
pathetic  patience  and  gentleness  and  helpfulness  toward  every- 
body. 

All  this  chimes  in  with  what  I  have  long  noticed  of  the 
apparent  effect  of  the  old-fashioned  everyday  spiritualism  on 
its  votaries.  In  the  little  I  have  seen  of  them  they  have 
impressed  me  as  exceptionally  kindly  people.  And  as  to  those 
above  the  everyday  ones,  remember  what  I  have  told  about 
its  effect  on  Hodgson,  and  what  James  says  a  few  pages  back, 


940  Final  Summary  [Bk.  Ill 

of  the  effect  of  the  spiritistic  beliefs  of  Hodgson  and 
Myers. 

Now,  so  far  as  one  is  ready  to  admit  the  absence  of  nonsense 
from  the  most  modern  of  the  heavens,  it  must  seem  con- 
gruous to  admit  it  regarding  the  sources  from  which  the  ideal 
has  emerged.  If  the  heaven  is  reasonable,  presumably  the 
manifestations  indicating  it  are,  despite  the  fact  that  there 
is  a  good  deal  of  mild  nonsense  in  the  human  imperfections 
of  the  mediums  and  the  controls,  as  in  the  rest  of  us:  for, 
"  thank  God,"  in  going  to  "  Heaven  "  even  the  controls  have 
not  ceased  to  be  human,  and  I  humbly  submit  that  as  among 
the  best  features  of  the  last  heaven  evolved. 

But  the  controls  all  improve  upon  it,  in  one  sense  at  least, 
by  dwelling  on  the  idea  of  progress — each  of  them,  of  course, 
much  according  to  his  own  taste,  from  Judge  Edmonds* 
apocalyptic  visions  down  to  the  more  recent  scholarly  ideals 
of  Myers  and  the  philosophical  ones  of  George  Pelham.  And 
that,  I  again  humbly  submit,  is  next  to  the  best  ideal  of 
Heaven  yet  evolved — that  every  man,  and  woman  too,  at  last 
is  to  have  plenty  of  elbow  room.  This  is  part  of  the  rational- 
ity of  the  whole  business. 

As  there  seems  to  be  this  margin  for  tastes  in  pursuits  and, 
incidentally,  companionships,  why  not  the  same  in  surround- 
ings? Nobody  ever  imagined  a  heaven  as  beautiful  as  some 
parts  of  this  earth.  Why  want  to  leave  it,  except  for  such 
excursions  as  may  interest  one?  The  controls  indicate, 
whether  truly  or  fallaciously,  that  though  not  directly  evident 
to  our  senses,  they  are  still  happy  on  earth  with  vastly  im- 
proved powers  of  enjoying  the  whole  of  it,  and  perhaps  of 
enjoying  other  planets  as  well,  though  that  latter  is  thrown 
open  to  question  by  frequent  calls  for  oxygen.  Yet  there 
may  be  enough  for  their  needs  even  in  the  interstellar  spaces, 
and  if  Home's  alleged  imperviousness  to  heat  means  anything 
in  the  connection,  our  amiable  ghosts,  if  they  see  fit,  may 
travel  to  the  suns.  That  call  for  oxygen,  by  the  way,  at  first 
seems  a  blow  to  such  faith  in  their  expositions,  as  other  por- 
tions of  the  expositions  have  tended  to  inspire.  True,  as 
they  have  had  to  (via  the  medium)  speak  and  write  our 
language,  they  may  really  each  have  a  "spiritual  body" 
whose  needs  they  can  indicate  to  us  only  in  terms  congruous 


Ch.  LVI]  Fitzgerald's  Experience  941 

with  the  temporal  body  we  know,  and  without  thinking  to 
make  due  qualifications.  There  are  hosts  of  expressions, 
though  not  always  where  needed,  that  point  to  just  this  set 
of  considerations. 

The  desirability  of  immortality  is  not  necessarily  identical 
with  the  desirability  of  a  belief  in  immortality.  This  latter 
is  strongly  indicated  in  a  recent  article  in  The  Nation  re- 
garding the  undesirable  effects  of  the  absence  of  such  a  belief, 
as  illustrated  in  the  life  of  Edward  Fitzgerald.  I  give  some 
extracts  slightly  modified  and  transposed  for  the  sake  of 
coherence  among  the  fragments. 

"  Many  critics  have  tried  to  reconcile  the  paucity  of  hia 
achievements  with  his  undoubted  intellectual  powers  . . .  shutting 
himself  off  from  his  famous  friends  to  smile  at  their  anxious 
ambitions,  at  Carlyle  thundering  against  iniquities,  Thackeray 
dallying  with  its  [the  world's?  H.H.]  conceits,  Tennyson  labor- 
ing to  build  in  rhyme  a  meeting-place  for  the  old  faith  and  the 
new  scientific  inquisitiveness.  What  if  they  had  seen  and  felt 
that  a  few  passing  years  would  sweep  away  all  these  things, 
merely  to  bring  in  other  iniquities,  and  conceits,  and  com- 
promises ?  Would  not  their  hands  have  been  palsied,  and  would 
not  they  have  sunk  into  that  philosophic  silence  which  Carlyle 
so  noisily  proclaimed?  Action,  such  a  life  as  Fitzgerald's  seems 
to  say,  is  based  on  the  fallacy  of  the  present. 

Fitzgerald  himself  said : 

" '  Death  seems  to  rise  like  a  Wall  against  one  whichever  way 
one  looks.  When  I  read  Boswell  and  other  Memoirs  now,  what 
presses  on  me  most  is — All  these  people  who  talked  and  acted  so 
busily  are  gone.  It  is  said  that  when  Talma  advanced  upon 
the  Stage,  his  Thought  on  facing  the  Audience  was,  that  they 
were  all  soon  to  be  Nothing.' 

The  commentator  continues: 

"  The  sense  of  the  present  as  a  fleeting  point  of  time  with- 
out meaning,  rather  than  any  failure  of  will,  was  what  drove 
Fitzgerald  from  the  crowded  activities  of  London  and  made 
him  a  solitary  recluse.  Such  a  philosophy  carries  with  it,  no 
doubt,  its  own  penalty;  and,  fleeing  from  the  world,  he  could 
not  altogether  escape  the  hounds  of  ennui: 

" '  For  all  which  idle  ease  I  think  I  must  be  damned.  I  begin 
to  have  dreadful  suspicions  that  this  fruitless  way  of  life  is 
not  looked  upon  with  satisfaction  by  the  open  eyes  above.  One 
really  ought  to  dip  for  a  little  misery;  perhaps,  however,  all 
this  ease  ia  only  intended  to  turn  sour  by-and-by.' 


943  Final  Summary  [Bk.  Ill 

"It  was  a  part  of  his  abstinence  from  the  present,  that  he 
could  not  abide  harassed  with  problems;  and  his  distaste  is 
well-known  for  the  poems  of  Tennyson's  own  middle  period, 
which  dealt  with  questions  of  evolution  and  religion  and  social 
disease. 

"  Now  it  is  true  that  Fitzgerald  might  have  been  thus  partly 
paralyzed  by  '  the  fallacy  of  the  present '  and  yet  had  what 
some  people  are  pleased  to  term  a  belief  in  immortality.  But 
if  so,  it  must  have  been  more  like  the  general  belief  of  our  an- 
cestors— divorced  from  any  natural  and  vivifying  development 
of  the  life  that  is.  It  could  not  have  been  such  a  belief  as 
makes  a  man  feel  a  new  significance  and  importance  in  things 
here  when  he  regards  them  as  germs  of  greater  things  to  come, 
and  demanding  his  best  now  that  he  may  be  at  his  best  then." 

Of  course  the  new  phenomena  cast  a  new  light  on  some  of 
the  old  arguments  for  immortality.  Let  us  glance  at  a  few 
of  them,  not,  however,  restricting  ourselves  rigidly  to  those 
on  which  there  is  something  specially  new  to  say. 

I.  There  would  be  an  offset  to  the  tendency  of  a  knowledge 
of  immortality  to  diminish  the  significance  of  this  life,  if  it 
were  believed  that  the  soul  begins  the  new  life  with  the  char- 
acter developed  here,  and  that  it  would  get  more  out  of  that 
life  in  proportion  to  what  it  had  brought  to  it.  This  is  just 
what  the  new  mass  of  alleged  communications  indicate.  They 
are  counter  to  the  old  assumption  of  a  sudden  change  into 
perfect  character  and  beatitude,  with  a  pair  of  wings  (without 
muscles  to  move  them),  and  a  halo,  and  a  life  of  nothing  to 
do  but  sing  songs  and  insult  "  God "  with  the  same  kind 
of  sycophancy  that  has  long  been  the  fashion  here  among 
many  believers  in  immortality.  On  the  contrary,  the  alleged 
communications  indicate  that  death  is  a  mere  transference 
into  better  conditions,  of  the  individuality  with  whatever 
capacities  it  has  developed. 

It  is  a  craven  soul  that  would  consider  conditions  better 
unless  they  give  opportunity  for  more  development,  more 
work,  more  service  to  others,  and  more  effect  in  the  general 
progress.  These  ideals  of  a  future  life  are,  however,  com- 
paratively recent  products  of  evolution,  and  are  of  still  lim- 
ited diffusion  among  the  human  race.  Now  would  not  an 
intelligent  and  beneficent  evolution  make  the  development 
of  certainty  (I  do  not  say  of  belief)  regarding  a  future  life 
proceed  at  the  same  rate  with  the  evolution  of  such  ideals 


Ch.  LVI]          New  Light  on  Old  Doctrines  943 

regarding  it  as  would  tend  to  make  that  certainty  a  stimulus 
to  the  right  conduct  of  this  life  ?  Faith  in  a  future  life  has 
heretofore  had  little  or  no  effect  on  the  conduct  of  many 
professing  to  hold  it,  because  it  has  had  few,  if  any,  of  the 
qualities  of  a  realized  certainty.  May  we  not  now  be  on 
the  brink  of  realized  certainty? 

II.  Cannot  the  sporadic  appearance  of  the  new  alleged 
channels  of  communication  with  a  life  beyond  death  be  reason- 
ably regarded  as  an  indication  of  genuineness?     Is  not  the 
limited  sporadic  appearance  of  this  new  sensibility  just  as 
consistent  with  the  order  of  evolution  as  the  earlier  limited 
and  sporadic  appearance  of  sensibilities  to  light,  heat,  contact 
— mechanical  and  sapid — and  all  sensibilities  whatever  ?    And 
is  not  the  tardiness  of  the  evolution  of  the  new  sensibilities 
also  just  as  consistent  with  evolution  in  general  as  was  the 
tardy  appearance    (compared  with   all   evolution  that  pre- 
ceded them)  of  the  old  sensibilities? 

III.  As  all  previous  conceptions  of  a  "plan"  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  a  plan  making  for  good,  were  immensely  clarified 
and  broadened  by  the  gradually  accumulated  evidences  of 
material  evolution,  does  not  that  "  plan  "  appear  clearer  and 
broader  still  when,  to  the  evidences  of  it,  are  added  the  new 
evidences,  doubtful  as  they  are,  for  post-material  evolution? 
If  so,  post-material  evolution  would  seem  part  of  the  plan. 

IV.  Evolution  has  more  and  more  demonstrated  so  many 
of  the  conflicts  and  agonies  of  the  world  to  be  promotive  of 
good,  that  it  is  daily  becoming  more  reasonable  to  believe  that 
all  are.     Is  it  not  consistent  with  this  belief  to  make  it 
include  the  belief  that  the  agonizing  separations  by  death  are, 
after  all,  but  temporary,  and  efficient  in  fitting  those  sepa- 
rated to  give  more  to  each  other  and  receive  more  from  each 
other  when  the  separation  ends? 

V.  This  brings  us  to  a  new  aspect  of  the  idea  that  I  have 
dwelt  upon  before,  which,  more  than  perhaps  any  other,  gives 
the  universe  consistency  and  purport — the  idea  that  these 
planets  and  these  creatures  on  them  are  evolved  in  order 
that  each  creature  may  either  develop,  or  appropriate  from  the 
cosmic  soul,  an  individual  soul  with  its  possibilities  of  finding 
happiness,  and  increasing  happiness  for  itself  and  others; 
and  that,  with  the  increase  in  the  number  of  such  souls,  hap- 


944  Final  Summary  [Bk.  Ill 

piness  throughout  the  universe  may  be  increased.  The  new 
aspect  of  the  idea  is  this:  As  there  seems  a  limit  only  to 
primary  mind-potential,  as  there  is  to  matter  and  force, 
but  none  whatever  to  its  products,  if  the  possibilities  of  the 
mind-product  are  not  to  be  kept  down  to  those  of  the  matter 
and  force,  these  must  be  used  over  and  over  again  for  new 
bodies,  in  order  that  there  may  be  more  souls;  and  there 
must  be  more  souls  that  there  may  be  more  happiness. 
Wouldn't  it  be  a  futile  change  if  all  bodies  died  merely  to 
give  place  to  others  ?  Can  we  imagine  anything  more  absurd 
than  that  the  trouble  should  be  taken  to  shift  the  myriads 
of  people  three  times  a  century,  when,  unless  those  dying  here 
survive  elsewhere,  the  job  could  have  been  done  just  as  well 
by  a  single  unchanging  set  of  them,  as  by  multiplied  genera- 
tions? Why  not  avoid  the  agonies  of  death  and  separation 
by  keeping  the  same  people  right  along  until  the  planet  should 
be  filled  up?  Change  seems  reasonable  only  on  the  assump- 
tion of  better  conditions,  to  which  the  soul  passes  after  those 
here  experienced.  And  the  mere  fact  that  the  souls  are  not 
kept  along  here,  when  the  only  apparent  reason  for  putting 
them  here  is  happiness,  raises  a  presumption  that  they  are 
kept  along  beyond  here.  But  the  only  way  of  starting  them,  so 
far  as  we  know  or  seem  to  have  any  business  to  know,  was 
in  bodies  of  flesh  and  bone,  subject  to  sundry  limitations  and 
inconveniences;  and  there's  nothing  to  prevent  our  guessing, 
as  so  many  of  us  have,  though  none  of  our  guesses  are  neces- 
sarily good,  that  at  "  death  "  we  are  merely  relieved  of  those 
troublesome  bodies — perhaps  transferred  to  better  ones. 

But  the  biggest  source  of  the  happiness  for  which  all 
this  mechanism  appears  to  have  been  set  running,  is  com- 
panionship with  each  other,  and  if  one  of  us  is  shifted  into 
a  better  body,  he  has  been  taken  out  of  that  companionship, 
so  far  as  it  depends  on  the  senses  yet  evolved,  and  that  hurts 
so  much  that  it  often  seems  that  unless  the  break  is  tem- 
porary, the  whole  scheme  for  happiness  is  farce  and  irony. 
Is  it  possible  that  there  are  being  evolved  new  senses  which 
prove  that  the  break  is  temporary,  and  that,  after  all,  the 
scheme  is  effective?  The  presumption  that  it  is,  gains 
weight  with  what  appears  to  be  a  constant  increase  in  the 
probability  that  our  thoughts  and  feelings  are  not  mere  results 


Ch.  LVI]  The  Hopeful  View  Gaining  945 

of  bodily  function,  but  are  in  their  elements  inflows  from 
the  Cosmic  Soul,  the  body  being  their  temporary  receptacle 
and  a  mechanism  for  starting  them  on  an  unending  de- 
velopment. 

There  is  one  of  the  old  arguments  on  which  I  have  been 
receiving  so  much  new  light  by  the  simple  process  of  growing 
old,  that  I  cannot  refrain  from  mentioning  it,  although  it 
hardly  has  a  legitimate  place  in  the  connection.  When  one 
has  long  watched  his  friends,  not  to  speak  of  himself,  he 
cannot  fail  to  be  increasingly  impressed  by  the  way  life 
develops  character.  In  a  normal  life,  courage  (moral,  not 
physical),  patience,  toleration,  and  the  power  to  see  and 
weigh  all  sides,  grow  as  long  as  the  body  is  able  to  obey  the 
mandates  of  the  soul.  Is  it  not  counter  to  Nature's  general 
ways  that  this  development  should  proceed  up  to  the  end  of 
a  mortal  life  only  to  be  suddenly  cut  off  ?  Allow  the  growth 
of  character  amply  to  justify  itself,  is  there  not  still  a 
residuum  of  incongruity  out  of  all  balance  with  Nature's 
general  ways,  in  the  development  of  the  soul  for  extinction, 
just  as  we  develop  the  ox  for  slaughter?  The  death  of 
the  body  releases  its  share  of  force  and  matter  for  the  de- 
velopment of  a  new  body,  but  the  extinction  of  the  soul  could 
not  add,  in  any  way  that  we  can  conceive,  to  the  sum  of 
happiness  that  we  see  Nature  constantly  striving  to  increase. 

When  during  the  last  century  science  bowled  down  the  old 
supports  of  the  belief  in  immortality,  there  grew  up  a  ten- 
dency to  regard  that  belief  as  an  evidence  of  ignorance,  nar- 
rowness, and  incapacity  to  face  the  music.  May  not  disregard 
of  the  possible  new  supports  be  rapidly  becoming  an  evidence 
of  the  same  characteristics  ? 

When  the  majority  of  those  who  have  really  studied  the 
phenomena  of  the  sensitives,  starting  with  absolute  skepticism, 
have  come  to  a  new  form  of  the  old  belief;  and  when,  of  the 
remaining  minority,  the  weight  of  respectable  opinion  goes 
so  far  as  suspense  of  judgment,  how  does  the  argument  look? 
Isn't  it  at  least  one  of  those  cases  of  new  phenomena  where 
it  is  well  to  be  on  guard  against  old  mental  habits,  not  to 
say  prejudices? 

IB  it  not  now  vastly  more  reasonable  to  believe  in  a  future 


946  Final  Summary  [Bk.  Ill 

life  than  it  was  a  century  ago,  or  half  a  century,  or  quarter 
of  a  century?  Is  it  not  already  more  reasonable  to  believe 
in  it  than  not  to  believe  in  it?  Is  it  not  already  appreciably 
harder  not  to  believe  in  it  than  it  was  a  generation  ago? 

So  far  as  I  know,  the  dream  life,  from  mine  up  to  Mrs. 
Piper's,  vague  as  it  is,  is  an  argument  for  immortality  based 
on  evidence. 

The  mediums  are  not  generally  among  the  world's  leading 
thinkers  or  moralists — are  not  generally  more  aristocratic 
founders  for  a  new  faith  than  were  a  certain  carpenter's  son 
and  certain  fishermen;  and  only  by  implication  do  the 
mediums  suggest  any  moral  truths,  but  they  offer  more  facts 
to  the  modern  demand  for  facts. 

Spiritism  has  a  bad  name,  and  it  has  been  in  company 
where  it  richly  deserved  one;  but  it  has  been  coming  into 
court  lately  with  some  very  important-looking  testimony  from 
very  distinguished  witnesses;  and  some  rather  comprehensive 
minds  consider  its  issues  supreme — the  principal  issues  now 
upon  the  horizon  between  the  gross,  luxurious,  unthinking, 
unaspiring,  uncreating  life  of  to-day,  and  everything  that  has, 
in  happier  ages,  given  us  the  heritage  of  the  soul — the  issues 
between  increasing  comforts  and  withering  ideals — between 
water-power  and  Niagara. 

Are  the  new  developments  at  best  merely  to  reform  life  here 
by  reviving  hopes  of  immortality  which  may  be  disappointed  ? 
Paradoxical  it  is,  but  true,  that  hopes  of  immortality  can  never 
be  disappointed:  for  if  they  are  not  realized,  we  shall  never 
know  it. 

But  Nature  has  not  built  some  of  us  to  be  content  with 
that,  nor  am  I  ready  to  believe  that  she  has  built  us  to  fool 
us.  We  have  fooled  ourselves  frightfully — all  through  history. 
But  has  Nature,  in  many  great  issues,  fooled  us  to  our  hurt? 
In  answering,  perhaps  you  would  ask  what  I  consider  "  Na- 
ture " — whether  these  manifestations  are  Nature  or  ourselves. 
My  rejoinder  would  be:  They  are  Nature;  they  contain  no 
purpose  of  ours.  Then  you  say :  The  inviting  of  them  is  pur- 
poseful. And  I  say :  The  phenomena  themselves  are  not — with 
our  purpose :  not  you  nor  I  nor  the  trance  medium,  nor  even 
the  receptive  Foster,  is  responsible  for  them.  Nature  gives 


Ch.  LVI]   Nature's  Beneficence.     Word  from  Explorers    947 

them  to  us  of  her  own  motion.  Despite  her  little  deceits,  like 
the  Mantis  and  protective  coloring,  despite  the  misinterpreta- 
tions of  our  ignorance,  despite  the  relentlessness  of  her  laws, 
by  and  large  she  is  honest.  The  doubt  of  immortality  is  not 
over  the  innate  reasonableness  of  the  belief:  the  universe  is 
immeasurably  more  reasonable  with  it  than  without  it;  but 
over  its  practicability  after  the  body  is  gone.  We,  in  our 
immeasurable  wisdom,  don't  see  how  it  can  work — we  don't 
see  how  a  universe  that  we  don't  begin  to  know,  which  already 
has  genius  and  beauty  and  love,  and  which  seems  to  like  to  give 
us  all  it  can — birds,  flowers,  sunsets,  stars,  Vermont,  the 
Himalayas,  and  the  Grand  Canyon;  which,  most  of  all,  has 
given  us  the  insatiable  soul,  can  manage  to  give  us  immor- 
tality. Well !  Perhaps  we  ought  not  to  be  grasping — ought 
to  call  all  we  know  and  have,  enough,  and  be  thankful ;  but  on 
whatever  grounds  we  despair  of  more  (if  we're  weak  enough 
to  despair),  surely  the  least  reasonable  ground  is  that  we  can- 
not see  more :  the  mole  might  as  well  swear  that  there  is  no 
Orion. 

Sill  compared  the  Cosmic  Ocean  with  the  Polar  Sea  then 
imagined.  Peary  has  since  proved  that  no  such  sea  ever 
existed  in  fact.  But  in  regard  to  the  other,  we  have,  since 
Sill  wrote,  been  receiving  strange  messages  which  profess  to 
come  from  explorers  whom  we  knew  before  they  left,  and 
come  often  with  their  phraseology  and  mannerisms  so  close 
that  if  they  came  from  any  before-unexplored  part  of  earth, 
no  one  would  think  of  doubting  them — so  close  that,  even 
coming  from  sources  generally  held  impossible,  they  startle 
us  and  convince  many  skeptical  investigators  of  their  gen- 
uineness, and  draw  from  other  investigators  close  and  constant 
attention  with  an  inclination  toward  acceptance  inch  by  inch. 
On  the  other  side,  many  people  of  high  intelligence  (though 
perhaps  none  with  intelligence  as  high  as  James'  or  Lodge's) 
have  declared  the  mere  messages  a  priori  fraudulent  or  obvi- 
ously illusive. 

Well,  whatever  they  are,  the  case  is  not  closed,  and  will  not 
be  until  it  is  cleared  up,  even  if,  as  James  thinks  not  im- 
probable, it  takes  a  century:  the  facts  are  too  insistent  and 
too  important.  We  know  already  that  something  does  exist 


948  Final  Summary  [Bk.  Ill 

to  which  every  observer  has  given  some  such  name  as  the 
Cosmic  Ocean:  the  question  is  whether  some  messages  from 
it  are  from  explorers  who  have  left  us,  or  are  from  other 
sources ;  and  if  so,  from  what  sources.  That  they  were  always 
forged  by  the  messengers  who  bring  them  seems  absolutely 
out  of  the  question.  Even  Imperator  and  his  gang,  if  they 
were  unconsciously  forged  by  Moses,  and  copied  by  Mrs. 
Piper,  have  fooled  (if  they  have  fooled)  very  few,  and  they 
have  fooled,  if  they  have  fooled,  because  there  were  no  facts 
with  which  to  test  them.  But  the  facts  in  regard  to  G.  P., 
the  Thaw  babies,  Hodgson,  and  hosts  of  other  alleged  controls 
are  abundant  to  prove  that  the  presentations  of  them  and  the 
verisimilitude  of  their  messages,  are  too  nearly  exact  to  be 
accidentally  coincident  figments  of  imagination,  and  so  nearly 
exact  as  to  be  beyond  any  powers  of  mimicry  that  we  under- 
stand, even  supposing  the  mimic  to  be  in  possession  of  the 
data  for  mimicry,  which  at  first  was  suspected,  and  now  is 
overwhelmingly  proved  impossible. 

But  however  bright  anybody's  hopes  may  be,  it  is  not  natu- 
ral and  would  not  be  well  that  the  prospect  should  absorb 
our  constant  attention.  The  principal  reasons  why  it  should 
not  are  found  in  the  history  of  monasticism.  The  best  that 
the  prospect  can  do  for  us  is  to  serve  as  a  cheerful  background 
for  our  duties  and  our  sorrows;  but  this  background  once 
acquired,  the  natural  place  for  our  attention  is  on  the  duties, 
and,  though  harder  to  recognize,  on  the  sorrows  too,  when  our 
attention  is  called  there. 

At  a  final  survey  it  all  seems  to  me,  as  nearly  as  I  can  express 
it,  about  like  this.  We  have  grown  up  with  anthropomorphic 
ideas  of  spirits.  But  the  new  physics  and  the  new  psychology, 
especially  admitting  telepathy,  have  materially  modified  them. 
To  the  latest  science  the  ghost  is  still  the  essential  personality 
we  know  here :  but  as  already  said,  that  is  merely  an  individual- 
ized aggregate  of  cosmic  vibrations  with  the  power  of  produc- 
ing on  us  certain  impressions.  That  to  produce  those  im- 
pressions, we  must  have  that  particular  part  of  the  vibrations 
which  we  call  body  is  a  very  primitive  notion,  and  to-day  per- 
haps rather  a  stupid  one.  All  the  vibrations  which  we  care 
for  come  in  dreams,  while  the  body  lies  almost  as  inactive  as 


Ch.  LVI]        New  Aspects  of  Old  Arguments  949 

if  non-existent.  We  know  now  that  after  that  portion  of 
the  vibrations  consituting  "the  body"  disappears,  there  still 
exists  somewhere — perhaps  only  (though  that  is  losing  prob- 
ability every  day)  in  the  memories  of  incarnate  survivors,  the 
capacity  of  impressing  us,  at  least  in  the  dream  of  life,  as  of 
old.  And  that  life  begins  to  look  mightily  as  if  it  were  the 
true  life,  the  waking  life  being  only  ancillary  to  its  develop- 
ment. Now  with  our  anthropomorphic  habits,  we  want 
to  know  "  where  "  this  abiding  capacity  to  impress  us  abides. 
The  thinkers  generally  say:  In  the  Cosmic  Reservoir,  which 
I  would  rather  express  as  the  Psychic  Ocean,  boundless, 
fathomless,  throbbing  eternally. 

The  evidence  seems  very  strong  that  the  currents  and  inflows 
of  the  Psychic  Ocean — or  hadn't  we  better  leave  the  metaphor 
(though  perhaps  you  will  call  the  changed  terms  but  a  new 
one)  and  say  the  telepathy  from  the  Cosmic  Soul? — can 
restore  or  create  in  the  individual  soul  everything  we  have 
experienced  or  do  experience,  and  probably  infinitely  more 
that  we  are  to  experience — that  those  currents  can  restore 
and  continue  lost  thoughts  and  lost  joys  and  lost  loves; 
and  make  new  combinations  and  evolutions  that  beggar  all 
our  experiences  and  imaginings.  Regarded  rightly,  the 
brightest  prospect  we  can  conceive  is  that 

" we — all  we — 

Are  drifting  rapidly 
And  floating  silently 
Into  that  unknown  sea, 
Into  eternity." 

Some  of  the  old  arguments  are  taking  on  new  aspects, 
and  there  are  two  of  them  so  responsive  to  the  pragmatic  eddy 
in  current  thought  that  they  may  be  worth  drawing  attention 
to.  The  first  has  weight  only  with  those  who,  like  perhaps 
most  thinking  men  who  went  through  the  philosophic  change 
introduced  by  Evolution,  have  known  both  denial  and  belief 
regarding  immortality.  It  is  the  enormous  increase  brought 
by  the  belief  to  coherence  and  expansion  in  one's  view  of  the 
Cosmic  Relations.  The  second  argument  is  in  the  following 
question,  and  will  weigh  with  only  those  who  find  an  affirmative 
answer:  Does  the  course  of  my  life  seem  to  conform  to  some 


950  Final  Summary  [Bk.  Ill 

plan,  not  mine,  which  is  profoundly  significant  if  I  am  to 
survive  the  combination  called  my  body,  and  which  is  foolish- 
ness if  I  am  not? 

Now  all  this  is  going  to  appear  to  you  either  hifalutin  non- 
sense, or  a  not  unthinkable  interpretation  of  facts,  with  some 
reasonable  claim  to  be  at  least  held  provisionally  until  we 
get  more  facts.  If  it  shall  appear  the  former,  regard  an  old 
man's  vagaries  as  charitably  as  you  can.  If,  happily  for  me, 
perhaps  for  both  of  us,  it  shall  appear  the  latter,  you  may  have 
found  among  all  these  dreams  and  metaphors  and  guesses, 
some  word  worth  while. 

Every  book  ought  to  contain  things  which  will  make  its 
reader  an  inhabitant  of  a  larger  universe  than  he  was  before, 
and  such  is  peculiarly  the  duty  of  any  book  attempting  the 
themes  of  this  one.  Unless  it  has  done  that  for  you,  it  has 
failed.  If  it  has  done  that,  though  I  may  never  know  that 
it  has,  the  labor  in  it  is  compensated. 

And  now  good-bye,  and  thank  you  for  all  your  patience. 
We  may  not  meet  again  here :  for  I  leave  soon ;  but  whether 
we  do  or  not,  perhaps  some  time  we  will  meet  where  meeting 
may  be  easier. 


GLOSSARIAL   INDEX 


Volume  II  begins  on  page  513. 

Wherever  any  term  indicating  "  spirit "  is  used,  it  is  to  be 
regarded  as  provisional,  not  as  expressing  opinion  on  the  spiritistic 
theory. 

In  long  titles  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  index  sub-titles  alpha- 
betically under  their  most  significant  words,  but  that  is  not  always 
practicable.  Where  the  page-number  of  a  sub-title  is  followed  by  a 
comma,  the  succeeding  words  refer  to  the  sub-title — not  to  the  main 
title  unless  the  page-number  is  followed  by  a  semicolon. 

Many  words  are  indexed  in  various  forms:  e.g.,  Dream,  Dream 
life,  Dream  states,  Dreaming,  Dreams,  Hypnosis,  Hypnotic,  Hyp- 
notism, Hypnotized. 

Works  cited  are  named  in  italics,  and  generally  located  only  under 
the  first  citation. 


A ,   Abijah,  365. 

A.,  383,  392,  761. 

A.,  Miss,  97,  366. 

A.,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  603,  761. 

Abercromby,   Blanche,  349. 

"Absolute,"  the  term,  9 

Accordion,  playing  and  move- 
ments of,  108,  178,  179. 

Adams,    dowsing,    137. 

Adams,  of  Evansville,  111., 
211. 

Advance,   The,  415. 

JSneid,    778. 

Affection,  of  controls  greater 
than  when  on  earth,  535. 

After  Death— What?  (Lom- 
broso),  26. 

Age,  in  spirit  world,  372,  424, 
428,  429,  501,  826,  937. 

Agnes,   439,  751. 

Air,  pure,  controls  need, 
746. 

Alexander,  Professor,  chair, 
movement  of,  169;  lights,  152; 
musical  sounds,  147;  raps,  in- 
telligent, 181 ;  table-tipping, 
169;  telekinesis,  102;  whistling, 
146. 

Alfred,   789. 


Alice    (Mrs.  W.  James),  726. 

Alice  (Junot),  806,  807,  814, 
817. 

Alice  (Mrs.  Dew  Smith),  682. 

Allen,  455. 

Allen,  Mr.,  Dowsing,  127. 

Allie,  797. 

Alsop,  Mr.,  757 

Altruism,  beginnings  of,  47. 
See  also  ETHICS. 

Alva,   506. 

American  Society  for  Psychi- 
cal Research,  100. 

Amoebae,  14,  15,  16,  44,  45, 
295. 

Anesthesia,  local:  400;  dur- 
ing trances,  452,  834. 

Animals,  spirits  of,  424;  see- 
ing spirits,  816. 

Animism  and  Epiphenome- 
nalism,  34. 

Anna  Eliza,  503. 

Anne,  Aunt  (Lodge,  Sir  O. 
J.),  438,  439,  440,  441,  446. 

Annie,  557. 

Answers  to  questions  on 
folded  slips,  174. 

Anthropomorphic  ideas  con- 
cerning spirits,  948. 


953 


954      Glossarial  Index.    Volume  II  begins  on  page  513. 


Anthropomorphism,  553. 

Apparition,  Arab,  694;  Aunt 
Bessie,  113;  breathing,  694;  dis- 
cusses with  man  during  last  ill- 
ness, 418;  in  dream,  911;  Dunn, 
Edward,  268;  Elvira,  910;  Gur- 
ney,  Edmund,  669;  horse  sees, 
271;  J.  P.,  269;  Kakie,  484,  488, 
489;  Smith,  Pearsall,  sees,  271; 
speaking,  267,  269;  team  and 
wagon,  272.  See  also  APPARI- 

T10NS. 

Apparitions,  animals  seeing, 
271;  at  time  of  death,  259,  267; 
of  the  living,  617;  Podmore, 
Frank,  250;  spirits  not  neces- 
sarily present,  665.  See  also 
APPARITION,  CLOUD,  DREAMS,  MA- 
TERIALIZATION, MATERIALIZATIONS, 
MATERIALIZED,  PHANTASMS. 

Appetites,  in  spirit  world,  536, 
542.  See  also  CHARACTER. 

Apport,  cases  of,  122,  153,  359. 
See  also  BELL,  BOOK,  CAMEOS, 
FLOWERS,  MATTER. 

Arcana  of  Nature  (Tuttle), 
231. 

Archdale,  Mrs.,  766. 

Architecture  in  dreams,  885, 
890,  901. 

Aristotelians  and  Platonists, 
452. 

Aristotle,  453. 

Arm  of  medium  rigid,  460. 

Armijo,  P.  C.,  prophecy  of  sui- 
cide of,  274. 

Armstrong,  George  Allman, 
raps,  146,  183;  telekinesis, 
102. 

Art   in  dreams,  898. 

Articles,  once  used  by  the 
spirits,  influence  of,  432,  433, 
442,  491,  498,  788,  791. 

Ashburner,  levitation,  202; 
Notes  and  Studies  in  the  Phi- 
losophy of  Animal  Magnetism 
and  Spiritualism,  115. 

Association,  centers  of,  690. 
See  also  IDENTITY. 

Astral,  fac-simile  of  material 
body,  468. 

Atmosphere,  influence  of  on 
mediumistic  results,  369. 

Augustine,  Saint,  73. 


Aura,  psychic,  343,  352.  See 
also  SOUL, 

Autobiography  of  a  Journalist 
(Stillman),  183. 

Autokinesis  (—Mental  control 
of  functions,  production  of  stig- 
mata, &c.),  93,  197.  See  also  Ap- 
POHT,  AUTOMATISM,  DIVINING, 
DOWSING,  ELONGATION,  FIRE- 
HANDLING,  FIRE-WALKING,  HEAT, 
LEVITATION,  SOMNAMBULISM,  STIG- 
MATA, SUGGESTION,  TELEKINESIS. 

Automatism,  definition  of, 
332;  heteromatism  and,  332, 
336 ;  possession  and,  331 ;  sensory 
and  motor,  332.  See  also  AUTO- 
KINESIS,  HETEROMATISM,  POSSES- 
SION, WRITING. 

Auto-suggestion  (—Self-hyp- 
notism), in  dreams,  895. 

Ayers,  Dr.  Edward  A.,  varie- 
ties of  the  eye,  24. 

B.,  383,  391,   761. 

B.,  Miss  A.  A.,  414. 

B.,  Eugene,  table-tipping,  172. 

B ,  Bert,  825. 

Bach,    John    Sebastian,    402. 

Bacon,  453;  and  Shakespere, 
576. 

Bagie,  484,  487. 

Baker,  William,  859. 

Baldwin,  George,  504. 

Bancroft,  Miss  Margaret,  696, 
697,  715,  716;  cross  given  to, 
by  Dr.  Hodgson,  717;  lights, 
716. 

Bar  Harbor,   716. 

Barkworth,  T.,  454. 

Barrett,  Professor  Sir  William 
P.,  99,  100,  453,  864;  dowsing, 
124,  130,  132,  134,  139;  Psychical 
Research,  139;  raps,  145;  table- 
tipping,  175;  thought  reading, 
244. 

Bartlett,  George  C.,  Ill,  156, 
174,  184,  211,  243,  274;  The 
Salem  Seer,  111;  spiritistic  hy- 
pothesis repudiated  by,  241. 

Baskets  flying  around  room, 
117,  150. 

Bastable,  F.,  dowsing,  133. 

Bayfleld,  M.,  675. 

Bayley,  Dr.  Weston  D.,  711, 
717. 


Glossarial  Index.     Volume  II  begins  on  page  613.    955 


Beauchamp,  Sallie,  413,  836, 
841. 

Beaufort,  Admiral,  896. 

Beaunis,  Professor,  dreams, 
907;  hypnotic  suggestion,  212. 

Beelzebub,  898. 

Bell,    Mr.,    124. 

Bell,  apport  of  a,  153. 

Bells,  telekinetic  ringing  of, 
104. 

Beneficence,  natural  law  and, 
70.  See  SUFFERING. 

Bennett,  E.  B.,  626. 

Bennett,  E.  T.,  dowsing,   134. 

Benny  Boa,  694. 

Benson,  Mrs.,  622. 

Bergman,  Miss  M.,  730,  732. 

Bergson,  Henri,  76;  cosmic 
soul,  299;  dreams,  909;  intuition, 
454;  matter  and  intellect,  29; 
parallelism,  34. 

Bernadette,  fire-handling,  203. 

Bernheim,  Professor,  hypnotic 
suggestion,  212. 

Berwick,  468. 

Bessie,  Aunt,  apparition  of, 
113. 

Beyond,  systems  of  belief  re- 
garding the,  74.  See  also  SPIRIT 
WORLD. 

Biggs,  Dr.  M.  H.,  hypnotic 
suggestion,  214. 

Binet  on  psychic  endowments 
of  the  protozoa,  45. 

Birchall,  James,  thought 
transference,  245. 

Bird,  Miss  Alice  L.,  necklace 
raised  on  end,  108. 

Bird,  George,  stance  with  D. 
D.  Home,  108. 

B'rds  in  spirit  world,  414. 

Blake,  William,  323;  writing 
heteromatic,  340. 

Blavatsky,   Mine.,  436,  686. 

Bleton,   dowsing,   129. 

Blinds,  Venetian,  moved  tele- 
kinetically,  108. 

Blister*,  through  hypnotic  sug- 
gestion, 212,  213.  See  STIGMATA. 

Boardman,  Carl,  809. 

Bobby,   621. 

Body,  13;  environment  and  the, 
311;  individuality  and  the,  305; 
mind  and,  315.  See  alto  SOUL. 


Book  moved  from  closed  cup- 
board, 122. 

Books,  closed,  read  by  spirits, 
353. 

Bourne,  Ansel,  836. 

Bourne,  Dr.,  hypnotic  sug- 
gestion, 212. 

Bousser,  Aleck,  521,  525. 

Bowditch,  Professor,  100. 

Brain,  consciousness  and,  247; 
of  medium,  communicator  using, 
477;  mind  and,  35,  314;  of  a 
spirit,  558;  tissue,  transmutation 
of,  35.  See  also  MEDIUMSHIP, 
SOUL. 

Bramwell,  Dr.  J.  Milne,  hyp- 
notism; its  history,  practice,  and 
theory,  604;  suggestive  thera- 
peutics, 604. 

Bray,  Charles,  reservoir  of 
thought,  298. 

Breath,  spirit  losing,  during 
communication,  694,  696,  728. 

Brewin,  Charles  P.,  838. 

Briggs,  L.  V.,  479. 

Briscoe,   Mr.,  438. 

Brodie,  446. 

Brooks,  Phillips,  485. 

Brown,  A.  J.,  836. 

Brown,  Mrs.,  ticking  in  a  let- 
ter, 142. 

Brown,  Mrs.  H.  K.,  psychome- 
try,  240;  telepathy  and  thought 
reading,  240;  voices,  240,  257. 

Brown,  John  F.,  fraud,  charge 
of,  against  Mrs.  Piper,  411. 

Brown,  Thomas,  729. 

Brown,  W.  J.,  dowsing  for 
metals,  130. 

Browning,  Robert,  psychome- 
try,  242;  "Sludge  the  Medium," 
106;  telepathy,  242. 

Bruce,  H.  Addington,  dreams, 
894,  900-905;  dreams,  construc- 
tive, 901 ;  emotional  complex, 
subconscious,  905;  hysteria,  905. 

Brunton,  Dr.  Lauder,  divining 
rod,  131. 

Bryant,  Wm.  Cullen,  thought- 
reading,  240. 

Bucke,  Dr.,  891,  892,  906; 
Cotmic  Contciousneti,  60;  color, 
sense  of,  60;  cosmic  conscious- 
ness, 86. 


956     Glossarial  Index.     Volume  II  begins  on  page  51S. 


Bulwcr,  Charles  H.  Foster, 
US. 

Bunyip,  558. 

Burney,  446. 

Burot.  Dr.,  hypnotic  sugges- 
tion, 212. 

Busts  moved  from  their  places, 
115. 

Butt,  Major,  communication 
from,  262. 

C.,  table-tipping,  171. 
-,  809. 
-,  Emily,  347,  348. 

(Mrs.),  Mary,  483,  487, 
489. 

Cabanis,  secretion  of  thought, 
32,  34. 

Cabinet,  use  of  a,  in  seances, 
151,  184. 

Calling  on  spirits  may  disturb 
their  rest,  646. 

Calvinistic  Theology,  3. 
t    Cameos  cut  at  stances,  179. 

Capacity  and  opportunity, 
724. 

Card-board  figures,  mortals 
looking  like,  665. 

Card-plate  floating  round 
room,  108. 

Carpenter,  on  dreams,  907. 

Cartwright,  Mrs.,  606;  diction 
of,  607;  Imperator  not  known  to, 
615;  materialization,  628;  spirit- 
ism abhorred  by,  615. 

Catalepsy,  dowsing  and,  137; 
transposition  of  the  senses,  27. 
See  also  HYPNOSIS. 

Catharine,  179. 

Cavazzoni,  Angelina,  909. 

Chairs,  movement  of,  103,  107, 
117,  169,  170. 

Chambers,  Robert,  message 
from,  178;  writing,  independent, 
184. 

Character,  death  does  not 
change,  942;  immortality  and, 
945;  life  develops,  945.  See  also 
APPETITES,  ENVIRONMENT,  ETHICS, 
EVIL,  MATERIAL,  MATERIALISTIC, 
PASSIONS,  PROGRESS,  SUFFERING. 

Characteristics,  physiognomi- 
cal: and  mediumships,  538,  539. 

Charcot,  Professor,  hypnotic 
suggestion,  212. 


Charlie,  809,  810. 

Child,  Professor  F.  J.,  733. 

Childe  Roland.  683. 

Children,  care  of,  in  spirit 
world,  814;  communications  from, 
523;  rarely  earthbound,  576; 
growing  up  in  spirit  world,  424, 
428,  429,  826. 

Chlorine,  401,  861. 

Chocorua.  451. 

Christian  Science,  215;  origin 
of,  487.  See  also  FAITH  CURE. 

Clairaudience,  148,  737.  See 
also  CLAIRVOYANCE. 

Clairvoyance,  234,  289,  415; 
dowsing  and,  137;  telepathic,  in 
dreams,  915.  See  also  CLAIR- 
AUDIENCE, HYPNOSIS,  TELEPATHY, 
TELOPSIS. 

Clara,  444. 

Clare,  603. 

Clarke,  F.  H.,  807. 

Clarke,  J.  T.,  451. 

Clegg,  Miss,  627. 

Clothing  in  spirit  world,  no, 
594,  727. 

Cloud,  luminous,  188. 

Cocke,   J.   R.,  401. 

Coincidence  and  cross  corre- 
spondences, 761. 

Cold  air  at  seances,  153,  185. 

Coleridge,  894,  898. 

Colline,  Miss,  121. 

Color,  evolution  of  the  sense 
of,  60,  62. 

Colville,  W.  J.,  234;  Australia, 
trip  to,  235;  clairvoyance,  234; 
inspirational  speaking,  235;  me- 
diumship,  benefits  of,  236 ;  Treas- 
ure of  Heaven  reviewed,  235; 
warning,  236;  writing,  hetero- 
matic,  235. 

Communicate,  some  spirits  can, 
much  earlier  than  others,  465, 
518,  522. 

Communicating,  misty  pic- 
tures, 640.  See  also  below. 

Communication,  ailments,  sense 
of,  during,  416,  429,  476,  479, 
694,  696,  787,  850,  851;  condi- 
tions of,  746;  control  and,  414; 
difficulties  of,  see  DIFFICULTIES; 
fragment  of,  for  previous  sitter, 
490;  frequent,  bad  for  spirits, 


Glossarial  Index.    Volume  II  "begins  on  page  513.    957 


729;  interpolations  in,  490;  liv- 
ing person  supposed  to  send,  876; 
method  of,  390,  746;  nightmare 
and,  568;  process  of,  639;  sleep 
and,  520;  sporadic  nature  of, 
943;  thought-reading  and,  589; 
years  between  beginning  and  end 
of  a,  920.  See  also  above  and 
below. 

Communications,  affection, 
strong,  results  in  better,  501; 
aura,  psychic,  343;  best  in  me- 
dium's own  room,  343;  character 
of,  238,  356;  confusion  in,  553; 
control,  medium  and  sitter  in  re- 
lation to,  182,  183,  191,  283,  471, 
556,  578,  580,  637,  665,  667,  678, 
735,  745,  783,  847,  875;  language, 
unknown,  241,  242;  opinions  of 
medium  differing  from,  344; 
telekinetic,  196;  triviality  in,  870. 
See  also  COMMUNICATING,  COM- 
MUNICATION, COMMUNICATOR, 
COMMUNICATORS,  CONTROL,  CON- 
TROLS, CROSS  CORRESPONDENCE, 
IMPERSONATION,  MEDIUMSHIP, 
MESSAGE,  PERSONATION,  PSYCHOM- 
ETHY. 

Communicator,  bewildered  by 
the  medium's  light,  217;  brain  of 
medium,  using,  477;  breath,  out 
of,  640;  control  assists,  417,  469, 
507,  574;  country  in  which  he 
communicates  not  always  known 
to,  743,  751;  "Dreaming  it  Out," 
750;  forgetting,  416;  mediumship 
not  understood  by,  417,  433; 
noises  disturb,  755;  piano  tela- 
koustically  heard  by,  795;  rest 
needed  by,  752;  selects  himself, 
394;  "Strength"  or,  408;  voice 
of  medium,  hears  self  using,  641 ; 
weakness,  subject  to,  755;  writ- 
ing, not  always  aware  that  he  is, 
461,  622.  See  also  above  and 
below. 

Communicators,  excitement  of, 
752,  754;  exhausted,  776;  me- 
diums not  equally  adapted  to 
all,  524,  527,  574;  rest  needed 
by,  696,  720,  752,  755;  spirits 
present  affect,  795;  symptoms  of 
last  illness,  416,  429,  476,  479, 
497,  694,  696,  787,  850,  851; 


tired,  696,  720,  752,  755;  writing, 
speak  of  sitters  hearing,  803. 

Concentrate,  sitter  requested 
to,  222,  284. 

Concentration,  hinders,  some- 
times, 458,  675,  744;  writing 
questions  helps,  241.  See  also 
HYPNOSIS. 

Concepts,  beasts  and,  43;  per- 
cepts and,  43;  reality  and,  52,  53; 
words  and,  43. 

Condillac,  898. 

Conflicts  and  evolution,  943. 

Conformity,  morality  and,  6. 

Confusion,  in  communications, 
552,  795;  of  controls,  491,  519, 
520,  521,  522,  523,  524,  568,  574, 
581,  599,  600,  641,  644,  703,  705, 
790,  794,  797;  of  spirits,  537. 
See  also  EVIDENCE. 

Congeniality,  305. 

Conjecture  and  knowledge,  83. 

Conjurers,  fire-handling,  209. 

Consciousness,  cosmic,  86,  307; 
energy,  296;  mind,  37,  295,  300, 
307,  326,  742,  794;  mind,  sublimi- 
nal self  and,  307;  ocean,  947. 
See  also  SOUL  INFLOW,  COSMIC; 
ENERGY,  COSMIC;  MIND,  COSMIC. 

Consciousness,  individual,  8 ; 
beginnings  of,  22,  30,  38;  brain 
and,  247;  cosmic,  86,  307;  em- 
pirical, 897;  evolution  of,  39,  40, 
55,  58,  60;  infinite,  224;  layers 
of,  879;  of  likeness  and  differ- 
ence, 39,  41 ;  merging  into  an- 
other, 639;  soul  and,  29;  stream 
of,  928;  subliminal,  213,  224,  277, 
307,  309;  transcendental,  897; 
universal,  880.  See  also  SOUL, 
COSMIC  SOUL. 

Control  (=iThe  ostensible  per- 
sonality manifesting  through  a 
medium),  body  of  medium,  re- 
lation to,  544,  588;  change  of, 
423,  437;  cold  and  frightened, 
413;  communication  and,  414; 
definition  of,  179;  too  difficult 
for  some  communicators,  437; 
"Going  out"  by  the  feet,  422; 
hearing  through  medium's  hand, 
548;  spirits  kept  from  interfer- 
ing with,  590;  "String,  I  go  in 
on  a:"  (Phinuit),  860. 


958     Glossarial  Index.     Volume  II  begins  on  page  513. 


Controls,  342,  372,  377;  air, 
pure,  needed  by,  423,  433;  best 
work  near  home,  431;  communi- 
cators assisted  by,  469,  507,  522, 
574;  confusion  of.  See  CONFU- 
SION; conversation  between,  423, 
433;  in  demand,  result  of  being, 
645,  646;  distinctness  and  con- 
tinuity of,  519;  dream-state  of, 
388;  earthbound,  do  harm  to 
mediums,  591;  emotion  of,  843; 
hypnotism  cannot  recall,  840; 
individuality  of,  392,  407,  555, 
607;  initiative  of,  842;  interfer- 
ing with  one  another,  375,  460, 
591;  memory  of,  656;  secondary 
personalities  and,  840;  superior, 
and  sitters,  369;  survival,  con- 
vincing of,  843;  two  at  same  time, 
461,  462,  535,  589;  once  unbe- 
lievers, many  earnest,  570,  615; 
vary  with  mediums,  741.  See 
COMMUNICATOR,  COMMUNICATORS. 

Cope,  Professor,  100. 

Copernicus,  75. 

Corcorane,  Alexander  B.,  256. 

Cord  between  soul  and  body, 
756.  See  also  UMBILICAL. 

Corda,  898. 

Corder,  F.,  thought  transfer- 
ence, 245. 

Corelli,  Marie,  Treasure  of 
Heaven,  235. 

Corner,  Mrs.,  628. 

Correlation,  of  knowledge,  81  f. ; 
of  modes  of  force,  138.  See  also 
EVIDENCE. 

Cosmic.  See  CONSCIOUSNESS, 
INFLOW,  SOUL. 

Cosmic  Consciousness  (Bucke), 
60. 

Cox,  E.  W.,  materialization, 
159;  Moses,  W.  Stainton,  121; 
telekinesis,  109. 

Cracklings  and  tappings,  82. 

Cradle,  spirits  rocking  a,  114. 

Craig,  Dr.  George,  fire-walk- 
ing, 204. 

Craig,  Dr.  W.,  fire-walking, 
204. 

Creery  Children,  thought 
transference,  245. 

Crime,  traced  through  me- 
diums, 479. 


Criminals,  traced  by  means  of 
divining  rod,  136. 

Crookes,  Sir  William,  100, 
143,  153,  176,  184,  186,  453,  864; 
accordion  played,  178;  luminous 
clouds,  188;  cold  air  at  seances, 
153;  fire-handling,  206,  208;  D. 
D.  Home,  107,  184;  levitation, 
200;  light  and  phenomena,  116; 
lights,  151,  188;  materialization, 
157;  materialized  hands,  157; 
matter  passing  through  matter, 
153,  171;  musical  messages,  178; 
raps,  145,  176,  183,  186;  Re- 
searches in  the  Phenomena  of 
Spiritualism,  107;  success  at 
seances,  conditions  of,  370; 
telekinetic  power,  163;  dis- 
creditable treatment  of,  109. 

Crookes,  Lady,  cousin  M , 

178;  materialization,  158;  musi- 
cal messages,  178. 

Cross,  formed  by  hypnotic 
suggestion,  214;  of  light,  189. 
See  HODGSON,  IMFERATOR  AND 
RECTOR. 

Cross  Correspondence,  368,  383, 
646,  761;  Podmore,  Frank,  on, 
772;  study  of,  772;  thought 
transference  and,  769.  See  HOL- 
LAND, JOHNSON,  PIDDINOTON, 
VEHRALL. 

Crystal-gazing,  645,  672,  674, 
900. 

Crystals,  sentences  seen  in, 
603. 

Cumulative  effect  of  inci- 
dents, 700.  See  also  EVIDENCE. 

Curiosity  and   philosophy,  89. 

Curtains  moved  telekinetically, 
108. 

D.,  Gabriel,  table-tipping,  171. 

D.,  Mr.,  522,  607,  616,  916. 

D.,  Miss,  695.    See  also  Q. 

D.  P.  B.,  491. 

D ,  Annie,  460. 

D ,   Charlie,   810. 

Dan,   810. 

Dancing,  spirit,  184. 

Darkness,  at  seances,  116,  160, 
objectionable  to  Charles  H. 
Foster,  150,  184;  Home's  feeling 
regarding,  116;  Mrs.  Piper,  381. 

Darwin,  Charles,  73,  76. 


'Qlossarial  Index.     "Volume  II  "begins  on  page  513.    959 


Darwin,  Professor  G.  H.,  454. 

David,  481. 

Davidson,  Thomas,  100. 

Davies,  Mrs.  Anna,  ticking  in 
a  letter,  142. 

Davis,  Andrew  Jackson,  231, 
232,  292;  Neptune,  231;  works 
of,  231. 

Davis  children,  chair,  move- 
ment of,  169;  musical  sounds, 
147;  raps,  intelligent,  181;  table- 
tipping,  169,  170;  telekinesis, 
cases  of,  103;  whistling,  146. 

Dead,  special  group  of  ideas 
apparently  from  the,  260. 

"Dead,  There  are  no,"  261; 
"  we  are  not,"  183.  See  also 
LIFE. 

Death,  character,  imagined, 
change  of,  870;  cosmic  soul  and, 
302;  dreams  informing  of,  258, 
900,  902;  experiences  immediately 
after,  468,  570,  572,  641;  horror 
of,  70;  medium  informs  of,  411; 
Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  296;  spirits 
not  subject  to,  501;  transfer- 
ence to  better  conditions,  942; 
temporary  unconsciousness  after, 
653,  664;  violent  and  spirit  body, 
352;  vision  at  time  of,  259.  See 
alto  LIFE,  SPIRIT  WORLD. 

de  Hass,  Grandpere,  223. 

De  Long,  C.  E.,  property,  mes- 
sage about,  264. 

Delanne,  Professor  Ricket's 
se'ance  with,  694 

Densmore,  Iluldah,  595,  702, 
703. 

De  Qnincey  on  sympathy  with 
the  Infinite,  72. 

Desire  and  fulfilment  in  spirit 
world,  573. 

Determinism,  306. 

Developments,  new,  readiness 
and  need  for,  935. 

Didier,  Alexis,  550. 

Differences,  recognition  of, 
evolves  mind,  41,  42. 

Difficulties  of  communication, 
357,  372,  404,  405,  410,  413,  435, 
437,  461,  466,  472,  477,  491,  503, 
518,  520,  521,  522,  523,  524,  527, 
568,  581,  590,  591,  598,  599,  644, 
645,  664,  665,  693,  695,  696,  707, 


720,  729,  750,  751,  775,  795,  812, 
870. 

Difficulties,  of  communication 
support  genuineness,  357.  See 
also  EVIDENCE. 

Dinah,  484. 

Disbelief  in  spiritism,  bases 
of,  872. 

Disease,  treatment  of,  232, 
233,  388,  393,  401,  419,  427,  429, 
436,  442,  443,  446,  488,  507,  755, 
820,  826.  See  also  DIAGNOSIS, 
SUGGESTIVE  THERAPEUTICS. 

Dissociation  of  a  Personality 
(Prince),  838. 

Divided  selves,  835.  See  also 
PERSONALITY. 

Divining  rod,  Brunton,  Dr. 
Lauder,  131;  criminals  traced 
with,  131.  See  also  DOWSING. 

Doctor,  342,  346,  527,  545. 

Dodo,  483. 

Dogmatism,  302. 

Dormant   impressions,   288. 

Dormon,  a  devil  named,  171. 

Dorothy,  627. 

Dorr,  George  B.,  708,  746. 
"Anna  virumque  cano,"  777; 
classic,  774;  Jack,  714;  Minna, 
713;  Oldfarm,  713;  Piper-Myers 
sittings,  774;  test  questions,  776, 
778,  "Veni,  vidi,  vici,"  777. 

Dorr,  Mrs.,  434. 

Doubles,   617. 

Doubts,  manifestations  hin- 
dered by,  182.  See  also  DIFFICUL- 
TIES, EVIDENCE. 

Douglas,  Miss  J.,  178,  183, 
184,  206. 

Dow,  Alexander,  sittings,  499, 
500,  504. 

Dow,  Mrs.   Alexander,  506. 

Dowsing,  93,  123,  124,  125,  126, 
127,  128,  129,  130,  133,  134,  135, 
137,  139,  140;  Adams,  137;  Bar- 
rett, Professor  Sir  William  I., 
on,  124,  130,  132,  134,  139;  Bleton, 
129;  blindfolded,  127;  catalepsy 
and,  137;  clairvoyance  and,  137; 
criminals  traced  by  means  of,  136; 
electricity  and,  136 ;  fatigue  after, 
123,  124,  135;  German  society 
for  the  investigation  of,  140; 
Hodgson,  Dr.  Richard,  on,  125; 


960     Glossarial  Index.     Volume  II  begins  on  page  513. 


lightning  and  underground 
streams,  136;  magnetism  and, 
134,  136;  Mullins,  H.  W.,  127; 
Mullins,  John,  125,  126,  128,  130, 
135;  muscular  action  in,  theory 
of,  129,  131,  132,  133,  134,  139, 
140,  141;  phenomena  of,  causes 
of  the,  130,  131;  Rossiter  Ray- 
mond on,  124;  sensation  during, 
135;  solar  plexus  and,  137;  stag- 
nant water,  137;  Tompkins,  130, 
135;  towers,  133;  twig  violent  in, 
134;  without  twig  or  steel 
spring,  135;  Wallace,  Sir  Alfred 
Russel,  on,  136;  Whitaker,  H. 
W.,  on,  126,  133;  will  and,  136; 
Wood,  Miss  May,  128;  Words- 
worth, Miss,  127;  Young,  J.  F., 
137;  zoomagnetism  and,  138, 
140.  See  also  DIVINING. 

Dowsing  for  metals,  130; 
Brown,  W.  J.,  130;  Lawrence, 
134;  Tompkins,  130. 

Dramatization,  529,  551,  555, 
597,  657,  743,  750-1,  835,  845. 
See  IMPERSONATION. 

Dream,  creations,  528;  crea- 
tions of  hypnotized  subjects, 
710;  experiences  mistaken  for 
actual  happenings,  287;  of  dead 
hand,  903;  railway,  914.  See 
also  five  titles  below. 

Dream  life,  881;  attractions 
of,  926;  earth  life  a,  520;  and 
heaven,  928;  the  real  life,  926; 
time  and  space  in,  882,  895. 

Dream  state,  317,  831;  of  con- 
trols, 388;  and  future  life,  925; 
ignorance  of,  906;  mind-potential 
and,  318;  telepathy  and  the, 
287. 

Dreamers,  453. 

Dreaming,  never  experienced 
by  some,  907;  psychic,  life  of, 
908;  at  will,  832. 

Dreams,  of  accidents,  914; 
acted,  331,  824;  of  architecture, 
885,  890,  901;  art  in,  898;  auto- 
suggestion and,  895;  Beaunis, 
Professor,  on,  907;  Beelzebub, 
898;  Bergson,  Henri,  on,  909;  of 
bric-a-brac,  888;  Bruce,  H.  Ad- 
dington,  894,  900;  Bucke,  Dr., 
906;  Carpenter,  907;  causes  of, 


895,  905;    Coleridge,    894,    898; 
color  in,   889,   891 ;  constructive, 
901;    control    of,    318;    creative, 
901;      D,      Mr.,      917;      of     the 
dead,    900,    902,    915,    917;    and 
desire,    905;    drug    visions    and, 
906;   Dupr£,  Giovanni,  898;   Du- 
Prel,  894;  duration  of,  907;  ef- 
fect  of,    far-reaching,   922,   924; 
Egger,  896;  Ellis,  Havelock,  894, 

896,  898,     906,     907;     emotional 
complex,  905,  906;   explanations, 
forced,  919;   fatigue  after,  894; 
finding     lost     articles     in,     900; 
Freud,  Sigmund,  904,  905;   gen- 
ius   and,    893;     Goethe     solving 
problems      in,     898;      Goodrich- 
Freer,  Miss,  90;  Hammond,  907; 
Holde,   898;    hypnosis    and,   286; 
ignorance    about,    891;    induced 
telepathically,  910f.;  inflow,  cos- 
mic,   908,    909,    929;    inspiration 
and,  897,  898;  interpretation  of, 
894;   Jastrow,   907;    Kelley,   892; 
Kruger,  898;  La  Fontaine,  898; 
lectures,    writing    in,    898;    Les- 
sing,  907;  life  changed  by,  924; 
Locke,      907;      Lombroso,      898; 
MacKenzie,    Robert,    917;    Mac- 
nish,  907;  Maignan,  898;  Maury, 
895;   mediumship    and,   475,   494, 
500,  502,  520,  663,  673,  674,  676, 
681,    735,    824,    831,    882,    929; 
memory  in,  891;  morality  in,  927; 
music  in,  892,  898;  new  faculties 
in,  63;  novels  composed  in,  898; 
opinions  changed  by,  924;  ordi- 
nary, 894;  pageant  in,  895 ;  Palissy, 
Bernard,  898;  physical  well-being, 
35;    powers,    superior,    in,    884; 
premonitory,     902,     914;     prob- 
lems   solved    in,    898,    901;    pro- 
phetic, 290,  903,  904;  and  reality, 
929;  Rousseau,  892;  science  and, 
900;     sleep,     deep,     and,     907; 
somnambulic,    894;    spirits    and* 
904,     910,    915,     917,    920,    922; 
Stevenson,     Robert    Louis,     894, 
898;  Striimpell,  907;  subconscious 
perception    and,  902;    subliminal 
self   and,    924;    superior    powers 
in,    884;    survival    indicated    in, 
914,    917,    920,    922;    symbolical, 
905;  Tartini,  892,  898;  telepathic, 


Glossarial  Index.     Volume  II  begins  on  page  513.    961 


288,  909;  telepathy  and,  914; 
teloteropathic,  258;  theatrical, 
890;  tissue,  tax  on  in,  319; 
transcendental  consciousness  and, 
897;  veridical,  258,  288;  visions 
and,  288,  906;  Weygandt,  907; 
will  and,  909;  world  of,  894; 
Wundt,  907;  Voltaire,  898.  See 
also  APPARITIONS,  DREAM, 
DREAMERS,  DREAMING,  MEDIUM- 
SHIP,  SLEEP,  VISION,  VISIONS. 

Dualism,  7;  monism  and,  36. 

Duchatel,  Edmund,  message 
from  living  friend,  177. 

DuMaurier,    833. 

Dunn,  Edmund,  apparition  of, 
268. 

Dunraven,  Earl  of,  levitation, 
201. 

Dupre,  Giovanni,  898. 

DuPrel,  529,  653,  662,  892,  894, 
924;  consciousness,  empirical  and 
transcendental,  897;  God,  334; 
Mozart,  897;  Philosophy  of 
Mysticism,  897;  subliminal  con- 
sciousness, 309,  334. 

Durfee,  A.  B.,  dowsing  and 
electricity,  136. 

Dutch  in  communications,  613. 

E.  Q.,  385. 

Ear.    See  HEARING. 

Earle,  Mrs.,  837. 

Earthbound,  children  rarely, 
576;  controls  do  harm  to  me- 
diums, 591;  Myers,  F.  W.  H., 
might  become,  639;  Phinuit,  Dr., 
was,  584,  585,  589;  spirits, 
664. 

Earwigs,  peculiarity  of,  46. 

"Ectenic  Force,"  111. 

Edison,   124. 

Edmonds,  Judge,  language 
unknown,  communications  in, 
242;  visions  of,  882,  940. 

Edmonds,  Miss  Laura,  lan- 
guage, unknown,  communica- 
tions in,  242. 

Edmunds,  Miss,  517,  521, 
645. 

Education,    telepsychic,   292. 

Eeden,  Dr.  F.  van,  602,  645; 
collective  memory,  295;  crystal- 
gazing,  645;  Crysbergen,  612; 
dreaming  at  will,  833;  dreams, 


608,  609;  dreams,  control  of,  318; 
non-phenomena,  honest,  646;  phe- 
nomena, dishonest,  646;  Post, 
Vrouw,  612;  secondary  person- 
ality, 605;  "Stick,  talking  down 
that,"  645;  Thompson,  Mrs. 
Edmond,  605;  Thompson,  Nelly, 
608. 

Egger,   dreams,  896. 

Eglinton,  writing,  436. 

Ego,  transcendent,  307,  309, 
312. 

Eleanor  (Sir  O.  J.  Lodge's 
sister),  440. 

Eleanor    (Sutton),  484,  486. 

Electricity,  with  Foster,  150; 
in  materialization,  603.  See  also 
DOWSING,  TELEKINESIS,  ZOOMAG- 

NETI8M. 

Eliot,  George,  552,  568,  573; 
Imperator,  582;  Imperator  band 
of  lady  communicators,  leader 
of,  577;  incredulity  of,  577; 
Lewes,  George  Henry,  577. 

Elisa,  Mme.,  473,  521,  522. 

Eliza,  389. 

Eliza,  Anna,  503. 

Eliza-Maria,  445. 

Elizabeth,  489. 

Ellen,  389. 

Elliott,   Alice,   631. 

Ellis,  Havelock,  dreams,  896, 
898;  dreams  and  visions,  906; 
The  World  of  Dreams,  894,  906. 

Elongations,  210,  603. 

Elsie,  606. 

Elsine,  509. 

Elvira,  909,  910. 

Emily,    505. 

Emma,  505. 

Emotions,  bodily  tissue  and, 
35;  evolution  of  the,  44. 

Enid,  593. 

Environment,  influence  of,  6; 
response  to,  38.  See  alto 
CHARACTER. 

Epiphenomenalism,  animism 
and,  34. 

Eric,    593. 

Ennacora,  Dr.  G.  Z.,  telepathic 
dreams,  909. 

Ernest,    797. 

Ether,  psychic  and  luminifer- 
ous,  237. 


962     Glossarial  Index.     Volume  II  begins  on  page  518. 


Ethical  aspects  of  evolution, 
67. 

Ethics,  origin  of,  47;  self- 
preservation  the  beginning  of, 
47;  and  the  usual  thing,  47.  See 
also  ALTRUISM,  CHARACTER, 
ETHICAL,  MORALITY. 

Evangel,   854. 

Evidence,  best  not  publish- 
able,  516,  923;  cumulative,  251; 
of  immortality  might  be  danger- 
ous, 932;  independent,  706. 
See  also  CONTUSION,  CORRELA- 
TION, CUMULATIVE,  DIFFICULTIES, 
DOUBTS,  EVIDENTIAL,  FRAUD, 
IDENTITY,  IGNORANCE,  INQUIRY, 
JUDGMENT,  NAMES,  PREJUDICE, 
PRESTIDIGITATOR,  SKEPTICISM, 

SKEPTICS,  SITTERS,  STRENGTH. 

Evidential,  512,  691;  tests, 
377.  See  also  EVIDENCE. 

Evil,  in  spirit  world,  542. 
See  also  CHARACTER. 

Evil  spirits,  relics  of  dead 
superstitions,  171,  186,  346,  357, 
527,  536,  542,  546,  939. 

Evolution,  of  the  body,  13f.; 
conflicts  and,  943;  of  the  emo- 
tions, 44;  ethical  aspects  of, 
67;  and  belief  in  immortality, 
943;  of  intelligence,  934;  and 
materialism,  75;  and  morality, 
934;  post-material,  943;  of  new 
senses,  944;  of  new  sensibilities, 
943;  of  sight  still  in  process,  60; 
of  the  soul,  29f. ;  suffering  and, 
943;  of  thought,  43;  of  the  uni- 
verse, 50  f. 

Evolution  of  Animal  Intelli- 
gence (Holmes),  14. 

Experience,  terrestrial,  three 
planes  of,  86. 

Explorers,   word    from,   947. 

Exposition,  propaganda  ver- 
sus, 373. 

Expression,   idea  and,  327. 

Extremes,    reaction    from,    74. 

Eye  of  the  Englena  Viridis, 
47. 

Eyes,  evolution  of,  23;  varie- 
ties of,  Dr.  Edward  A.  Ayers  on, 
84.  See  SIGHT. 

F.,  Dr.  C.  W.,  404,  414. 

P.,    Mr.,    522. 


F.,  Robert,  458. 

Faculties,  new,  in  dreams,  63; 
special,  85. 

Faith,    874. 

Faith  Cure,  215.  See  also 
CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE,  SUGGESTION, 
SUGGESTIVE  THERAPEUTICS. 

Fakir,   and   the   rope,  209. 

Fan,   moved   about   room,  108. 

Fanny,   447. 

Farrows,  gravity  counteracted, 
198. 

Fatigue,  dowsing  causes,  123, 
134,  135;  heteromatic  writing 
and,  344,  674;  physical  phenom- 
ena and,  96,  110,  116,  123,  134, 
184. 

Fear,  beginnings  of,  46. 

Fechner,  subliminal,  224,  892; 
trance  approximating  death,  896. 

Feet,  control  leaving  body  by 
the,  423;  sound  of  pattering,  503. 

Fielding,    Hon.    Everard,   609. 

Finch  Hatton,  Hon.  Harold, 
dowsing,  126. 

Finch  Hatton,  Hon.  M.  E.  G., 
dowsing,  126. 

Finding  lost  articles,  230, 
272,  273. 

Finny,  Dr.,  401,  402. 

Fire-handling,  Bernadette,  203; 
conjurers  and,  209;  Home,  D.  D., 
202,  204,  206,  208;  Moses,  W. 
Stainton,  208;  Podmore,  Frank, 
on,  202.  See  also  HYPNOSIS. 

Fire-walking,  202,  203,  205. 
See  also  HYPNOSIS. 

"  Fishing,"  488,  523. 

Fiske,  John,  Cosmic  Philos- 
ophy, 43;  ostracized  on  account 
of  heresy,  74;  sleeping  power  of, 
831. 

Fitzgerald,  Edward,   941. 

Flowers,  apport  of,  603;  souls 
of,  484. 

Focachon,  M.,  hypnotic  sug- 
gestion, 212. 

Forbes,  Mrs.,  680;  cross  cor- 
respondence, 766;  Gurney  con- 
trol, 741. 

Forbes,  Talbot,  644,  766. 

Force,  and  matter,  38;  resist- 
ance-mode of,  160,  162;  sight- 
mode  of,  161;  telekinetic,  164. 


Glossarial  Index.     Volume  II  begins  on  page  518.    963 


Foreboding,     case     of,     291. 
See   also   PROPHECY. 

Forel,  Dr.,  hypnotic  sugges- 
tion, 212. 

Foster,  Charles  H.,  221;  Abi- 
jah  A ,  365;  answers  to  ques- 
tions on  folded  slips,  174; 
baskets  flying  around  room,  117, 
150;  clairvoyance,  289;  Claude 
(Holt),  222;  concentration  of 
sitter  desired  by,  222;  dance, 
spirit,  184;  Corcorane,  Alexander 
B.,  226;  afraid  of  darkness,  150, 
184;  death  announced  by,  265; 
de  Hass,  grandpere,  223;  de- 
scription of  a  spirit,  254; 
fatigue  after  phenomena,  116, 
184;  fawn,  white,  253;  income  of, 
225 ;  language  unknown,  communi- 
cations in,  241;  letters  on  back 
of  hand,  261;  levitation,  202; 
lights,  150;  living  person,  appari- 
tion of,  254;  was  Margrave  in 
Bulwer's  Strange  Story,  112; 
McClure,  Alexander,  told  son 
not  drowned,  255;  materiali- 
zation, 156;  names  told  by,  222, 
223,  225;  names  written  in  blood, 
211,  243;  oyster-shell  and  pearl, 
224;  pain  experienced  by,  364; 
property,  communication  about, 
264;  prophecy  of  suicide,  274; 
sealed  envelopes,  etc.,  289;  raps 
on  the  street,  145;  Resodeda,  365; 
skeptics  got  best  results  from, 
284;  Sextus,  222;  sparks,  150; 
stigmata,  211,  243,  261;  telep- 
athy with  the  author,  221;  vi- 
sions, psychic,  252,  253;  Wilson, 
Oregon,  stance  with,  115;  writ- 
ing, heteromatic,  223. 

Fox,  Miss  Kate,  heteromatic 
writing,  message  by  raps,  and 
conversation  at  same  time,  186; 
matter  through  matter,  153;  raps, 
143. 

Fox  Sisters,  "Exposures"  of 
frauds,  144. 

Francis,  Saint,  of  Assisi,  210. 

Frank,  389,  393. 

Frank,  Cousin.  See  JITNOT 
SITTINGS. 

Frank,  Uncle.  See  Juwor 
SITTINGS. 


Franklin,  Benjamin,  858; 
control  by,  239;  Moses,  W. 
Stainton,  350. 

Fraud,  accusation  of,  452; 
hypothesis  of,  194,  227,  232,  371, 
411,  550,  709,  866;  telepathy  and, 
227.  See  also  EVIDENCE. 

Fred,   504. 

French.  See  PHINOTT  and 
PIPER. 

Freud,  Sigmund,  "  buried  com- 
plex," 904;  dreams  and  desire, 
905;  dreams  all  symbolical,  905; 
Interpretation  of  Dreams,  831, 
894;  opinions  on  generalizations 
of  dreams,  905. 

Fuller,  Cyrus,  dowsing  and 
electricity,  136. 

Fullerton,  Professor,  100. 

Fusedale,  matter  passing 
through  matter,  154. 

Future  Life,  belief  in,  effects 
of,  69;  certainty  concerning  the, 
943;  a  continuation  of  present 
dream  life,  554;  information  re- 
garding the,  936;  preparation 
for  a,  6;  present  life  petty  com- 
pared with  the,  935.  See  also 
LIFE. 

G.,  Barthelemy,  table-tipping, 
171. 

G.,  Uncle,  495. 

G ,  Mr.,  813. 

Ganglia,  sympathetic,  20,  423. 
See  SOLAR  PLEXUS. 

Garfleld,  President,  death  of 
announced  by  Moses,  356. 

Garratt,  Mrs.,  W.  Stainton 
Moses,  121. 

Ganle,  Margaret,  727. 

Gene,  Uncle,  797. 

Genius,  237,  308;  constituency 
of,  77;  and  dreaming,  893;  im- 
mortal life,  belief  in,  72;  per- 
sonal gods,  belief  in,  72;  pro- 
genitors, fervors  of,  73. 

George,   Cousin,   803. 

German,  through  medium,  233. 

Ghosts,  present  ideas  of,  948. 
See  also  SPIRITS. 

Gibbens,    Margaret,    413. 

Giddings,  Professor,  935. 

Ginnasi,  Count,  psychometry, 
242;  telepathy,  242. 


964     Glossarial  Index.     Volume  II  begins  on  page  513. 


Gladstone,  Hon.  W.  E.,  100; 
subliminal  consciousness,  810. 

Gobineau,    Renaissance,   555. 

God,  21,  45,  67,  307,  334,  582, 
869,  897;  Moses,  W.  Stainton, 
343;  spirits  believe  in,  631, 
697,  815;  and  time,  897.  See 
also  COSMIC  SOUL. 

Goethe,  453;  dreams,  898. 

Goldney,  Sir  Gabriel,  dowsing 
for  metals,  130. 

Goodall,  Edward  A.,  voice  tells 
of  death,  270. 

Goodrich-Freer,  ( Miss X.), 454; 
crystal-gazing,  900;  dream  of 
dead  friend,  900. 

Goodwin,    fire-walking,    204. 

Gordon,   Miss,  627. 

Grace,   504. 

Grammar,  bad,  in  communica- 
tions, 403,  430,  438,  444,  446, 
502,  503,  570,  589,  598,  607. 

Gravity,  Hertzian  waves  and, 
198. 

Gray,  Zachary,  353. 

Greek,  in  communications, 
548,  549,  673,  680. 

Greenwood,  Frederick,  dream 
of  dead  hand,  903. 

Gregory,  Sir  E.  Welby,  dows- 
ing, 133. 

Grove,    Rupert,    631. 

Grove,  Mrs.  Rupert,  629; 
Casford  Hall,  633;  Elliott,  Alice, 
631;  Grove,  Rupert,  631;  Hals- 
ford  Hall,  633;  Marble,  Joseph, 
629;  Sandford,  Mrs.  Kate,  629. 

Grover,  Rich's  dog,  424. 

Gudgeon,  Colonel,  fire-walking, 
203. 

Guides,  the  term,  542,  544. 

Guppy,  Mrs.,  106. 

Gurney,  Edmund,  99,  372,  385, 
431,  454,  536,  646,  654,  663,  916; 
apparition  of,  669;  communica- 
tions from,  431,  639;  control, 
741;  control,  William  James  on, 
457;  D,  Mr.,  916;  death  of,  670; 
dreams,  spirits  and,  916;  earth- 
bound  spirits,  664;  Forbes,  Tal- 
bot,  766;  frosted  glass  simile, 
665;  hypnotic  suggestion,  215; 
mcdiumship,  435;  Myers  should 
not  be  asked  to  communicate, 


639,  664;  Myers  impressed  with 
thought  of  death  of,  670;  Myers 
belongs  to  a  higher  plane  than 
most  other  controls,  664;  Myers, 
opinion  on  work  of,  639;  person- 
ation, 639;  Phantasms  of  the 
Living,  260;  physical  phenomena, 
435;  pun  on  names,  665;  Scott, 
Mrs.,  message  through,  675;  tele- 
kinesis, 436;  thought-reading, 
244;  thought  transference,  247. 

Guthrie,  Malcolm,  thought 
transference,  245,  248. 

Guyon,  Mme.,  heteromatic 
writing,  340. 

H.,  friend  of  Miss  A.  M.  R., 
417. 

H.,  Colonel,  apparition  of  J. 
P.,  269. 

H.,  Dr.  and  Mrs.  L.  E.,  sitting 
of,  481. 

H ,  Dr.,  506,  509. 

H ,  Fred,  557. 

H s,  389. 

H s,  Miss  W.,  389. 

Hackett,   386. 

Haggard,  Colonel,  fire-walk- 
ing, 205. 

Hair-brush  broken  telekineti- 
cally,  104. 

"Hall"  (friend  of  George 
Pelham),  569. 

Hall,  Dr.  G.  Stanley,  840, 
864. 

Hall,  S.  C.,  fire-handling,  204. 

Hallucinations,  sanity  and, 
883;  waking,  883. 

Hammond,  on  dreams,  907. 

Hand,  dream  of  dead,  903. 

Hand  of  medium,  action  of, 
during  communication,  745,  752, 
754,  798;  action  of,  preliminary 
to  writing,  461 ;  is  "  head "  of 
control,  590;  struggle  for,  508; 
trembling,  460. 

Handkerchief  moved  teleki- 
netically  and  knot  tied  in  it,  108. 

Happiness,  by-product  of 
duty,  5;  in  spirit  world,  511,  590, 
594,  804,  807,  828,  925;  Nature's 
apparent  scheme  of,  943;  sanity 
and  pursuit  of,  4. 

Harris,  789. 

Harris,  Thomas  L.,  231. 


'Qlossarial  Index.    Volume  II  "begins  on  page  513.    965 


Harris,  D.  W.  T.,  100. 

Harry  (Mrs.  Holmes),  498; 
(Junot  sittings),  788;  (Dr. 
Leaf),  449,  452;  (Mrs.  Thaw), 
508. 

"Hart,  John,"  456,  467,  517, 
522,  525,  591,  592. 

Hartmann.  Edward  von,  on 
physical  phenomena,  298. 

Harvey,    366. 

Hattie,   485,  489. 

Haunting  spirits,  352. 

Havelock.  Sir  Henry,  831. 

Hawaii,    480. 

Hazard,  Thomas  R.,  raps  on 
street,  145. 

Head,  control  calls  hand  of 
medium  his,  590;  pains  in,  of 
medium,  649,  650. 

Healing  of  the  Nations  (Lin- 
ton),  231. 

Hearing,  evolution  of,  25,  63, 
64;  located  in  hand,  548. 

Heat,  resistance  to,  197,  202. 

Heaven,  de  Meissner,  Mme.  S. 
R.,  262;  dream  life  and,  928; 
still  human  in,  940;  of  satisfied 
longings,  939;  with  no  nonsense 
about  it,  939;  orthodox,  942;  a 
"planet,"  564,  566;  a  rational, 
937;  an  unvarying  happy,  655. 

Heavens,  enough,  725;  of  the 
past,  937 

Hedonism,  4;  and  develop- 
ment, 47. 

Heffern,  Miss  Ellen,  Agnus 
Dei,  507;  sitting  of,  502,  507. 

Helen,  389.  See  alto  JUNOT 
SITTINGS. 

Hendrik,   611. 

Henrietta,  600. 

Henry,    Joseph,   864. 

Henry,  Miss  Teulra,  flre- 
walking,  203. 

Herman,    prestidigitator,    280. 

Hertzian  waves  and  gravity, 
198. 

Heteromatism  (rrrManifesta- 
tions  of  one  personality  ostensi- 
bly at  the  inspiration  of  an- 
other), 261,  339,  340;  automatism 
and,  332,  336.  See  alto  AUTOMA- 
TISM, POSSESSION,  WRITING. 

Hettie,  600. 


Heywood,  Charles,  489;  coon 
pants,  492;  cradle,  493;  D.  P. 
B.,  491;  Point  of  Pines,  492; 
sittings,  489. 

Heywood,  Daisy  (Mrs.),  490, 
491. 

Heywood,  Dorothy,  490. 

Hocken,  Dr.  T.  M.,  fire-walk- 
ing, 205. 

Hodgson,  Dr.  Richard,  99,  111, 
360,  372,  463,  493,  685;  Alice, 
726;  amyl,  nitrate  of,  738; 
Annie,  557;  "  Arma  virumque 
cano,"  777;  "Automatically,  ut- 
terances come  out,"  721;  Ban- 
croft, Miss  Margaret,  communi- 
cations to,  715;  Bancroft,  Miss 
Margaret,  lines  to,  696,  697; 
Bergman,  Miss  M.,  730,  732; 
Blavatsky,  Mme.,  686 ;  "  Bousser, 
Aleck,"  521,  525;  breath,  losing, 
during  communication,  694,  696, 
728;  Bunyip,  558;  bust  of,  728; 
buying  Billy,  732;  character  of, 
685,  686,  687;  Child,  Professor 
F.  J.,  733;  children,  communica- 
tions from,  523;  choked  when 
trying  to  communicate,  694;  no 
clothing  in  spirit  world,  727; 
communication,  first,  689;  com- 
munication, frequent,  bad  for 
spirits,  729;  communications, 
711;  communicators,  bewilder- 
ment of,  217;  conclusions  of, 
513;  confusion  of  communica- 
tors, 519,  520,  521,  522,  523,  524; 
control  varies  with  mediums, 
741;  conversion  of,  462,  595,  864; 
Cousin  Fred,  409,  557,  592,  800, 
801;  cross  given  to  Miss  Ban- 
croft, 717;  cross  correspondence, 
762,  769;  D.,  Mr.,  522;  D.,  Miss, 

lines  to,  695;  D ,  Annie,  460; 

death  of,  685,  689;  developments, 
promised,  459;  difficulties  of 
communication,  693,  695,  707, 
720,  729;  dowsing,  125;  Elisa, 
Mme.,  521,  522;  England,  did  not 
know  he  was  communicating  in, 
743;  Enid,  593;  Eric,  593;  P., 
Mr.,  522;  Fred,  Cousin,  409, 
557,  592,  800,  801;  Gaule,  Mar- 
garet, 727;  God,  697;  H , 

Fred,  557;  happiness  greater  in 


966     Glossarial  Index.     Volume  II  begins  on  page  513. 


earth  life,  465;  "Hart,  John," 
456,  467,  517,  522,  525,  591,  592; 
Hindustani  poem,  744;  Holland, 
Mrs.,  communications  through, 
738;  houses  in  spirit  world,  727; 
Huldah,  595,  702;  Hyde,  Fred, 
557,  592,  800,  801;  Hyslop,  Dr. 
James  H.,  714,  726;  Imperator, 
belief  in,  687;  Jack,  714;  James, 
Professor  William,  on,  933, 
Hodgson  control  calls  him 
"blind,"  729,  expectations  of,  731; 
Jessie,  704;  Latin  in  communica- 
tions, 770;  Leigh,  593;  likeness 
to  Foster,  Moses,  and  Pelham, 
538,  539;  Lyman,  communications 
to,  697;  M.,  Miss,  516;  M.,  Mrs., 
516,  731,  732;  MacDonough  mes- 
sages, 525;  Margaret,  694,  697; 
Margaret,  Aunt,  557;  Margie, 
731 ;  Marte,  524 ;  medium  in  spirit 
world,  726;  memory  of,  after 
death,  729;  Minna,  713;  "Mitch- 
ell, Mrs.,"  523;  mongrel,  yellow, 
800;  Moses,  W.  Stainton,  likeness 
to,  538;  Miinsterberg,  Professor 
Hugo,  739;  Myers,  F.  W.  H., 
726;  Myers  letters,  593;  names 
correctly  given,  523;  names,  dif- 
ficulty in  getting,  523,  693,  714; 
wrong,  735;  Nantasket  beach, 
719;  Newbold,  Professor  W.  R., 
717,  message  to,  744,  sittings 
of,  719;  nigger-talk,  701;  obses- 
sion, 527;  Osborne,  Miss  E.  V., 
594;  Osborne,  Miss  Gertrude, 
594;  Paul,  Saint,  770;  Pelham, 
George,  464,  695,  likeness  to,  538; 
pencil,  693,  694;  personality,  sec- 
ondary, 519;  Phinuit,  Dr.,  mis- 
takes of,  523;  Piddington,  J.  G., 
on,  687;  Piper,  Mrs.,  communica- 
tions through,  in  England,  742, 
not  recognized  by,  535;  Piper  re- 
port, first,  400;  second,  460;  Pope, 
Miss  Theodate,  communications 
to,  693,  694,  696,  730;  power  or 
energy  in  communicating,  217; 
prophecy,  case  of,  529;  Prudens, 
726;  Putnam,  Miss  Irene,  sit- 
tings of,  731,  732;  Q.,  Miss,  592, 
594,  704,  741;  Rector,  728;  Rec- 
tor controls  for,  689,  747; 
Ring,  697;  Robbins,  Miss,  733; 


Schiller,  Dr.,  732;  Sidgwick,  Pro- 
fessor Henry,  386, 732;  sitters,  re- 
pellent, 520;  sitters,  sympathetic, 
520,  526;  first  sitting,  409; 
sitting  with  Mrs.  Piper  and 
Henry  Holt,  382;  Smith,  Mr., 
524;  S.  P.  R.  in  spirit  world, 
726;  Soule,  Mrs.,  727;  spirit 
hypothesis  justified,  526;  spirit- 
ism, effect  of,  on,  933;  suicide, 
case  of,  729;  Tavern  club,  728; 
telekinetic  phenomena,  718;  tel- 
epathic hypothesis,  523,  524,  525, 
526;  test  questions,  697;  Thomp- 
son, Mrs.  Edmond,  604;  Thomp- 
son, I.  C.,  refers  to,  755;  tired 
during  communication,  696,  720; 
utterances  "  come  out  automati- 
cally," 721;  "Veni,  vidi,  vici," 
656,  777;  Verrall,  Mrs.,  731; 
Warner,  Miss,  514,  524;  Wilde 
letters,  593;  "Witness  box,"  695, 
696,  720,  744;  writing,  731;  writ- 
ing, heteromatic,  460;  writing, 
heteromatic,  action  of  hand  in, 
461. 

Hodgson,  Rebecca,  409. 

Holde,  La  Phantasie,  898. 

Holland,  Mrs.,  329,  372,  374, 
637,  647;  apparition  of  Edmund 
Gurney,  669;  clairaudience,  737; 
CmrdeAbig,  654;  controls'  ad- 
vice to,  655;  cross  correspond- 
ence, 768;  Gurney,  Edmund, 
663;  Gurney,  Edmund,  appari- 
tion of,  669;  Gurney,  Edmund, 
control,  741;  headaches,  663; 
Hodgson  communications,  738; 
741;  Human  Personality,  650; 
Letters  from  spirits,  649;  medium- 
ship,  beginning  of,  861;  Myers,  F. 
W.  H.,  663,  control,  637,  650; 
pains  in  head,  649,  650;  phan- 
tasms, projected,  665;  Sidgwick, 
Professor  Henry,  663;  telepathy 
with  Mrs.  Verrall,  650;  writing, 
heteromatic,  647,  651,  made  her 
faint  or  sleepy,  737. 

Holmes,  Mrs.,  497;  Harry, 
498. 

Holmes,  Professor  S.  J.,  Evolu- 
tion of  Animal  Intelligence,  14; 
amoebae,  movements  of,  14,  295; 
intelligence,  development  of,  39; 


Glossarial  Index.     Volume  II  begins  on  page  513.    967 


Protozoa,  psychic  endowments  of 
the,  45. 

Holt,  Albert,  386. 

Holt,  Henry,  avoids  mediums, 
395;  dreams,  885f.,  920f.;  proph- 
ecy concerning,  273;  with  Foster, 

221  f.;  with  P ,  94  f.;  with 

Mrs.  Piper,  382f. 

Holt,  Dr.  L.  Emmett,  100. 

Home,  Daniel  D.,  105,  106, 
107,  292;  Chambers,  Robert,  178; 
messages  in  musical  chords,  178; 
fatigue  after  phenomena,  110; 
fire-handling,  202,  204,  206;  In- 
cidents of  my  Life,  106;  lath, 
movement  of,  176;  levitation, 
201;  materialization,  158;  pass- 
ing matter  through  matter,  154; 
musical  messages,  178;  pencil 
moved,  176;  raps,  143,  183;  raps 
in  Morse  code,  176;  St.  Peters- 
burg test,  110;  "Sludge  the 
Medium,"  106;  writing,  independ- 
ent, 183. 

Homeopathy,  Dr.  Phinuit, 
443. 

Honeywood,  Mrs.,  W.  Stain- 
ton  Moses,  121. 

Honolulu,  boy  from,  478. 

Hosmer,  Miss  Harriet,  appari- 
tion at  time  of  death,  267;  Let- 
tert  and  Memories,  266;  premoni- 
tion, 273;  telopsis,  cases  of,  272, 
273. 

Houses  in  spirit  world,  567, 
727. 

Howard,  Evelyn,  515. 

Howard,  James,  466,  472,  476, 
513,  525. 

Howard,  Katharine,  466,  472. 

Howard,  Mrs.  (Mary),  466, 
472,  476,  513,  515,  525. 

Howard,  William,  281. 

Howell,  Alfred,  dog  "Whisk- 
ers," 509. 

Hugging,  Mr.,  telekinesis,  109. 

Huldah,   595,   702. 

Human  Personality  and  itt 
Survival  of  Bodily  Death 
(Myers),  118. 

Hunter,  Mr.,  dream  of  death 
of,  914. 

Hntton,  Dr.  C.,  divining  rod, 
124,  129. 


Huxley,  76;  epiphenomenalism, 
34. 

Hyde,  Fred,  557,  592,  800,  801. 

Hylozoism,  atomistic,  30. 

Hyperesthesia,  131,  465. 

Hypnosis,  cosmic  inflow  and, 
303;  dreaming  and,  286;  and 
multiple  personality,  837;  telep- 
athy and,  278.  See  also  AUTO- 
KINESIS,  CATALEPSY,  CLAIRAUDI- 
ENCE,  CLAIRVOYANCE,  CONCEN- 
TRATES, CONCENTRATION,  FAITH 
CURE,  HYPNOTIC,  HYPNOTISM, 
HYPNOTIZED,  SOMNAMBULIC,  SOM- 
NAMBULISM, STIGMATA,  SUGGES- 
TION, TELEPATHY,  THOUGHT 
READING,  TRANCE,  TRANCES. 

Hypnotic  suggestion,  212; 
blisters  through,  213;  cross 
formed  by,  214. 

Hypnotic,  telepathy,  281;  vi- 
sions, 284. 

Hypnotism,  collective,  209;  by 
discarnate  personalities,  867;  ex- 
hibition of,  279;  mediumistic 
trances  and,  833,  834,  842,  867; 
memory  recovered  through,  899; 
Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  on,  332;  tele- 
psychosis  and,  400;  telopsis  and, 
281. 

Hypnotized  subjects,  dream 
creations  of,  710. 

Hypotheses,  straining,  919; 
unsatisfactory,  knowledge  in- 
creased by,  409. 

Hyslop,  Dr.  James  H.,  708, 
711;  conservative,  spirits  trying 
to  make  more,  726;  dowsing, 
140;  Henrietta,  600;  Hettie,  600; 
Hyslop,  Robert,  Senior,  599,  600; 
Imperator,  600;  individuality  of 
communicators,  599 ;  McClellan, 
Robert,  600;  Pelham,  George, 
599,  600;  Piper,  Mrs.,  report  on, 
597,  726;  stepmother,  601. 

Hyslop,  Robert,  Senior,  599, 
600. 

Hysteria,  905. 

Ida,   504. 

Idea,  The,  321 ;  expression  and, 
327;  expressions  of  an:  physical 
and  psychical,  326;  Plato  on,  323; 
and  reality,  487,  572,  883,  884, 
926;  real  being,  334. 


968     Glossarial  Index.     Volume  II  "begins  on  page  513. 


Idealism  and  realism,  52f., 
883.  See  also  IDEA,  REALISM, 
REALITY. 

Ideas,  floating  about  the  uni- 
verse, 276. 

Identity,  evidence  for,  Myers,  F. 
W.  H.,  on,  345;  proving,  292,  490, 
491,  513,  515,  M9;  sense  of,  lost 
for  a  time  at  death,  434.  See  also 
ASSOCIATION,  CENTERS  OF,  EVI- 
DENCE, INDIVIDUALTY,  PERSONAL- 
ITY. 

Ignorance,  skepticism  and, 
264.  See  also  EVIDENCE. 

Ike,  445. 

Illness,  symptoms  of,  mani- 
fested by  communicators,  416, 
429,  476,  479,  497,  694,  696,  787, 
850,  851. 

Imagination,  philosophy  and, 
89;  science  and,  80. 

Imitativeness,  beginnings  of, 
47. 

Immortality,  belief  in,  941; 
character  and,  945;  confidence 
in,  932;  desirability  of,  941; 
emotional  life  and,  73;  genius 
and,  72;  hopes  of,  946;  reason 
and,  945,  946,  947.  See  SPIRIT 
WORLD,  SURVIVAL. 

Imperator,  185,  345,  351,  358, 
360,  372,  527,  555,  600,  876, 
948;  author's  opinion  on,  578, 
586,  595;  communications  free 
from  thoughts  of  other  com- 
municators, 528;  communications 
chiefly  trash,  553;  Figure  of 
Cross,  189,  346,  347,  352,  359,  596, 
600,  677,  754,  759;  Eliot,  George, 
577;  God,  in  communication  with, 
582;  group.  See  under  separate 
heading;  "His  Holiness,"  553, 
583;  I.  S.  D.,  596;  inconsistencies 
regarding,  587;  lights,  188;  mar- 
tyr on  earth,  582;  materialization 
of,  159;  Moses,  W.  Stainton, 
185,  342,  545;  name  not  to 
be  mentioned,  545;  names  as- 
signed to,  543,  545,  579;  a  priest, 
793;  purpose  of,  583;  regime 
benefits  Mrs.  Piper,  746;  re- 
turn of,  527;  Schliville,  Dr.,  584? 
Servus  Dei,  346,  347,  352,  596; 
test  value,  701. 


Imperator  group,  360,  362, 
723,  724;  Professor  William 
James  on,  528,  707;  and  love  af- 
fairs, 704;  Moses,  W.  Stainton, 
gives  wrong  names  for,  543,  545, 
579;  Newbold,  Professor  W.  R., 
on,  721. 

Imperfections  in  the  universe, 
68. 

Impersonation,  824,  833,  834, 
853;  Mrs.  Piper's  beyond  mortal 
capacity,  661.  See  DRAMATIZA- 
TION, VERISIMILITUDE. 

Imprisoned  spirits,  mortals 
are,  581,  598,  665,  768. 

Incidents  of  my  Life  (Home), 
106. 

Indians  as  controls,  858. 

Individuality,  body  and,  305; 
of  controls,  393,  407,  426,  437, 
599,  607;  cosmic  soul  and,  305; 
determination  of,  306;  survival 
of,  303,  392,  846;  writing  hetero- 
matic,  343.  See  also  IDENTITY, 
PERSONALITY. 

Infinite,  consciousness  of  the, 
908;  the  term,  9. 

Inflow,  cosmic,  303,  307,  329, 
409,  412,  450,  551,  658,  784,  842, 
848,  897,  908,  909,  925;  and 
dreams,  908,  909,  929;  without  a 
human  body,  398;  hypnosis  and, 
303;  and  personality,  638;  telep- 
athy and,  303;  thought  and  feel- 
ing, 945.  See  also  COSMIC,  IM- 
PRESSIONS, INFORMATION,  INSPI- 
RATION, INSPIRATIONAL,  INTUI- 
TION, INTUITIVE,  MEDIUMSHIP, 
PSYCHOMETRY,  SPIRITS,  TELEP- 
ATHY. 

Influence  in  articles  once 
used  by  spirits,  432,  433,  442, 
491,  498,  788,  791.  See  also 
ARTICLES. 

Information,  abnormal  sources 
of,  295.  See  also  COSMIC  INFLOW. 

Inquiry,  secret,  charge  of,  411. 
See  also  EVIDENCE. 

Inspiration,  308,  317,  825, 
329;  and  dreams,  897;  Sweden- 
borg  claimed,  339;  writing,  het- 
eromatic,  649.  See  also  COSMIC 
INFLOW. 

Inspirational    speaking,    Col- 


Glossarial  Index.     Volume  11  begins  on  page  513.    969 


ville,  W.  J.,  235;  Moses,  W. 
Stainton,  191;  Mrs.  Richmond, 
233.  See  also  COSMIC  INFLOW. 

Instincts,  primary  roots  of, 
39. 

Intellect  and  the  perceptions, 

38.  See  also  INTELLIGENCE. 
Intelligence,     beginnings     of, 

39,  45.     See   also   INTELLECT. 
Intermediaries,     between     ex- 
perts and  lay  readers,  395. 

Interpretation  of  Dreams 
(Freud),  831,  894. 

Intuition,  453 ;  Bergson, 
Henri,  on,  454.  See  also  COSMIC 
INFLOW. 

Intuitive  type  of  mind,  453. 
See  also  COSMIC  INFLOW. 

Irving,  Hugh.  See  JUNOT 
SITTINGS. 

Isabel,  435. 

Isabella,   444. 

Italian  in  heteromatic  script, 
473. 

Izzie,  Aunt,  445. 

J.,  Mr.  F.,  385. 

J ,  M ,  502. 

Jack,  714. 

Jacks,  Professor  L.  P.,  100. 

James,  Henry,  Junior,  708, 
740. 

James,  Miss  Margaret  M.,  732. 

James,  Robertson,  411. 

James,  Professor  William,  99, 
400,  463,  481,  641,  722;  Alice,  467; 
association,  centers  of,  297,  470, 
690;  aunt  of,  communicates,  457; 
bank-book  located,  458;  "Blind," 
729;  Brown,  Thomas,  729;  Child, 
Professor  F.  J.,  733;  Clarke,  J. 
T.,  sitting  of,  451 ;  communica- 
tions from,  934;  consciousness, 
evolution  and,  30;  consciousness, 
stream  of,  928;  control,  455; 
control-cunning,  698,  699;  cos- 
mic reservoir,  297,  458,  470,  690, 
735;  cumulative  effect  of  inci- 
dents, 700;  drl iris,  mediums  and, 
925;  dream  creations,  528;  dream 
creations  of  hypnotized  subjects, 
710;  dream  creations  and  me- 
(1  in  in  si  iip,  735;  expectations  too 
great,  731 ;  evidence,  independ- 
ent, 706;  fraud  hypothesis,  709; 


Gurney  control,  457;  Hodgson, 
Dr.,  933;  Hodgson  control,  689; 
hypnotism,  710;  Imperator  band, 
528,  707;  Latin,  preposterous, 
735;  Literary  Remains,  457; 
logic  of  presumption,  709;  Mar- 
garet, 732 ;  memories,  sitters',  tap- 
ping, 735;  Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  933; 
passwords,  735;  Pelham,  George, 
712;  "Personal  centers  of  asso- 
ciation," 297,  470,  690;  persona- 
tion, subliminal  powers  of,  691; 
Phinuit,  Dr.,  455,  456,  457,  467; 
Piper,  Mrs.,  trance  memory  of, 
457;  Piper,  Mrs.,  trance  phe- 
nomena of,  455;  possession,  736; 
presumption,  logic  of,  709;  Psy- 
chology, 30;  Rector,  728;  report 
in  proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  374; 
reservoir  of  potential  knowledge, 
458;  Ring,  Dr.  Hodgson's,  700; 
sister-in-law,  731 ;  subliminal 
powers  of  personation,  691;  te- 
lepathy, world-wide,  285;  thought 
transference,  458;  trance  vocab- 
ularies, 701;  Varieties  of  Reli- 
gious Experience,  86;  writing, 
heteromatic,  339. 

James,  Mrs.  William,  412,  696, 
726,  731. 

James,   William,  Jr.,  696. 

Jastrow  on  dreams,  907. 

Jencken,  Mrs.  Kate  Fox,  "  Ex- 
posures," 144. 

Jenkins,  E.  Vaughan,  dowsing, 
126,  128. 

Jerry,  Uncle,  434,  438,  439, 
440,  441. 

Jessie,  704. 

Johann,  677. 

John,   Uncle,  440. 

Johnson,  Miss  Alice,  454,  602, 
647;  cross  correspondence,  768; 
Holland,  Mrs.,  667,  737;  Myers 
control,  667;  secretary  to  Mrs. 
Sidgwick,  623;  subliminal  re- 
crudescence, 669;  subliminal 
self,  656,  661;  subliminal  deceiv- 
ing the  supraliminal,  651; 
Thompson,  Mrs.  Edmond,  605; 
Verrall,  Mrs.,  667. 

Johnson,   Frank,  838. 

Johnson,  Dr.  Rossiter,  appari- 
tion of  team  and  wagon,  872. 


970     Glossarial  Index,     Volume  II  begins  on  page  513. 


Johnson,   Dr.   W.   G.,   on   W. 

Stainton  Moses,  120. 

Johnstone.   Rev.,  915. 

Joire,  Dr.,  899. 

Judgment,  suspended,  734; 
temperament  and,  391.  See  alto 
EVIDENCE. 

Jumba,  856. 

Junot,  John,  813. 

Junot  sittings,  785-829;  pre- 
liminary allusions  to,  374,  734; 
Alfred,  789;  Alice,  807;  Alice, 
Aunt,  806,  807,  814,  817,  818,  826; 
Allie,  797;  Bedelia,  825;  Bennie, 
785  et  teq.;  Bert,  825;  Billie, 

803;  Boardman,  Carl,  809;  C , 

809;  Charlie,  809;  Clarke,  F.  H., 

807;    D ,   Charlie,   810;    Dan, 

810;  diagnosis,  820,  826;  Edith, 
820;  Ernest,  797;  foot,  Roble's, 
821;  Frank,  Cousin,  823,  824, 
827;  Frank,  Uncle,  803,  806,  814, 

819,  821;  G ,  Mr.,  813;  Gene, 

Uncle,  797;  George,  Cousin,  803; 
God,  806;  Grandma  Junot,  804, 
815,  817,  823;  Grandpa  Junot, 
805,  806,  808,  820;  Harris,  789; 
Harry,  788;  Hat,  816;  Helen, 
794,  801,  803,  809,  810,  812,  815, 
817,  819,  820,  824,  826;  Helen, 
Aunt,  794;  horse,  790,  821.  See 
also  KLONDIKE,  POXY.  Hyde, 
Fred,  800,  801;  Imperator,  793; 
Irving,  Hugh,  786,  807,  823,  824; 
John,  813;  Klondike,  811,  819, 
825;  Laura,  789;  law,  studying, 
825;  Lawrence,  L.,  813;  light 
growing  dim,  826;  "Light,  Roble 
has,"  827;  Marion,  Cousin,  814; 
Mary,  814;  Miriam,  827;  mon- 
grel, yellow,  800;  name,  Bennie 
cannot  write  his,  790;  Pelham, 
George,  790,  795,  797,  801,  805, 
813,  818;  photographs,  809; 
piano,  795;  pony,  794,  813.  See 
also  KLONDIKE;  prayer,  phi- 
losophy of,  815;  praying,  819, 
827;  progress,  823;  pump,  821; 
Rector,  787,  818,  824;  rehearsal, 
823;  Roble,  791,  794,  799,  802, 
804,  810,  812,  815,  816,  817,  818, 
820,  821,  823,  824,  826,  827. 
Rounder,  786,  807,  810,  812,  816; 
Sam,  809;  Sammy,  799;  tela- 


kousis,  795;  Thomas,  Uncle,  797; 
Tommy,  812;  Vine,  811;  Walter, 
813;  Waterman,  Edith,  820; 
Welsh,  John,  786,  810;  worry, 
826. 

Jupiter,  planet,  561. 

X.,   Dr.,  495. 

Kabbila,  346. 

Xakie,  483,  484,  486,  487,  488. 

Kalua,  479. 

Kane,  Mr.,  878. 

Kane,  Mrs.  Maggie  Fox,  "Ex- 
posures," 144. 

Kant,  453;  Dreams  of  a  Ghost- 
seer,  229. 

Kate,  Aunt,  411. 

Katharine,  466,  467. 

Katherine  (Sutton),  483,  486; 
apparition  of,  484. 

King,   John,  346. 

Kinsolving,  Rev.,  prophetic 
dream,  290. 

Kirke,  Mrs.,  242. 

Klondike,  811,  819,  825. 

Knockings,  telekinetic,  104. 
See  RAPS. 

Knowledge,  conjecture  and, 
83;  definition  of,  9,  81;  para- 
doxes and,  299;  poetry  and,  80; 
sea  of,  266,  276;  uncorrelated, 
81.  See  also  COSMIC  SOUL. 

Known  and  the  unknown,  55, 
71. 

Kohnstamm,  E.  M.,  455. 

Koran,  339. 

Krafft-Ebing,  Dr.,  hypnotic 
suggestion,  212. 

Kruger,  on  dreams,  898. 

I.,  Aunt,  495. 

L.,  Miss  E.  C.,  428. 

L.,  Lawrence,  813. 

L ,   504,  511. 

Laddie,   510. 

La  Fontaine,  dreams,  898. 

Lame  control,  Miss  A.  M.  R.'s, 
417. 

Lang,  Andrew,  390;  fire-walk- 
ing, 202. 

Langley,  Professor,  100. 
Language,  of  communications, 
451,556;  communicator's,  affected 
by  mediums,  403,  430,  438;  for- 
gotten by  control,  656;  unknown, 
communications  in,  233,  241,  242, 


Olossarial  Index.    Volume  II  begins  on  page  513.    971 


404,  414,  420,  548,  612,  613.  See 
alto  TONGUES. 

Lateau,   Louise,   211. 

Lath  taps  out  message,  176. 

Latin,  in  communications,  548, 
673,  678,  679,  770,  783;  some  of 
it  preposterous,  735;  Verrall, 
Mrs.,  heteromatic  writing  in,  673. 

Laura,  789. 

Law  and  beneficence,  70;  uni- 
verse governed  by,  70. 

Lawrence,   dowsing,    134. 

Lawrence,  L.,  813. 

Leaf,  Dr.  R.  M.,  454;  Harry, 
449,  452;  muscle  reading,  448; 
Phinuit,  Dr.,  448,  451;  subliminal 
self,  449;  telepathy,  universal, 
295;  telopsis,  case  of,  451; 
thought  transference,  449,  455. 

Leaf,  Mrs.  Herbert,  451. 

Leaf,  Dr.  Walter,  426,  451. 

Leaf,  Mrs.  Walter,  428. 

Le  Baron  case,  854. 

Leigh,  593. 

Leasing  on  the  search  for 
truth,  74. 

Lethe  incident,  774. 

Letter*  and  Memories  (Hos- 
mer),  266. 

Letters,  address  furnished  by 
control,  408;  sealed  as  posthu- 
mous tests,  371,  411,  641,  667, 
733;  written  through  Mrs.  Hol- 
land, 649. 

Levander,  F.  W.,  letter  about 
W.  Stainton  Moses,  120. 

Levillain,  Dr.,  hypnotic  sug- 
gestion, 212. 

Levitation,  197,  198;  Crookes, 
Sir  William,  200;  Foster,  Charles 
H.,  202;  Home,  D.  D.,  201; 
Moses,  W.  Stainton,  199.  See 
alto  ACTOKINESIS. 

Lewes,  George  Henry,  577. 

Liebault,  Dr.,  zoomagnetism, 
164. 

Life,  character  developed  by, 
945;  earth,  a  nightmare,  572; 
Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  on,  296;  pur- 
pose of,  943,  949;  universal,  301. 
Bee  alto  DEAD,  DEATH,  FUTURE 
LIFE,  SURVIVAL,  VIBRATION,  VI- 
BRATIONS. 

Light,  216,  394,  433,  755,  827; 


astral:  prophecy  obtained  from 
one's,  414.  "The  body  is,"  588; 
column  of,  188,  191;  growing 
dim,  559,  574,  826;  effect  of  on 
phenomena,  22,  116,  171;  around 
medium's  head,  189;  passing 
through  the,  790;  Psychokinetic, 
216;  spirits  all,  541;  talking  to 
the,  568;  wasting,  537.  See  alto 
LIGHTS,  MEDIUMSHIP. 

Lightning  and  underground 
streams,  136. 

Light  on  the  Hidden  Way 
(Sutton),  483. 

Lights,  149,  150-159,  716, 
717,  854;  Alexander,  Professor, 
152;  Crookes,  Sir  William,  151; 
duration  of,  151,  189;  Foster, 
Charles  H.,  150;  "Intelligent," 
188;  Moses,  W.  Stainton,  150, 
188;  objective  and  subjective, 
190;  without  radiance  or  illumi- 
nation, 190;  raps  accompany, 
150,  152;  renewing,  152;  signal, 
188;  Speer,  Dr.  Stanhope,  152, 
188;  Taylor,  Lieutenant-Colonel, 
149;  Thomson,  Dr.,  151;  best  dur- 
ing deep  trance,  151,  152.  See 
also  LIGHT,  SPARKS,  VAPOR. 

Likeness  and  difference  basis 
of  mental  evolution,  41 ;  physical 
and  mental,  538. 

Lindsay,  Lord,  levitation,  201. 

Line,  Elsie,  610. 

Linton,  Charles,  Healing  of 
the  Nations,  231. 

Literary  Remains  (James), 
457. 

Living,  Foster's  visions  of, 
254;  Mrs.  Piper's,  255,  876.  See 

DUCHATEL. 

Locating,  bank-book,  458 ; 
bodies  of  drowned  boys,  290. 

Lochman,  Professor,  divining 
rod,  126. 

Locke  on  dreams,  907. 

Lodge,  Alfred,  439,  440,  441. 

Lodge,  Miss  Eleanor  (.'.,  440, 
445. 

Lodge,  Sir  Oliver  J.,  100,  391, 
453,  589,  640-646,  769,  864; 
consciousness  and  brain,  247; 
cosmic  mind,  295;  family  con- 
trols, 441;  five-pound  note,  760; 


972     Glossarial  Index.     Volume  II  begins  on  page  518. 


Hodgson  communications,  742, 
743;  hostile  attitude  absurd,  745; 
information,  abnormal  sources 
of,  295;  Marble,  Joseph,  control, 
632;  Oily,  441;  Phinuit,  Dr.,  426, 
760;  Piper,  Mrs.,  sitting  with, 
428-448;  possession,  863;  Rec- 
tor the  most  frequent  writer, 
746;  sitters,  superfluous,  632; 
spirit  world,  conditions  in,  759; 
spiritistic  hypothesis,  760;  telep- 
athy, 632,  863;  Thompson,  Mrs. 
Edmond,  605,  629;  Thompson, 
Isaac  C.,  communications  from, 
749;  thought  transference,  247, 
249,  455;  watch,  Uncle  Jerry's, 
439,  441,  442. 

Lodge,  Lady,  430,  640;  Clara, 
444;  Isabella,  444;  Izzie,  Aunt, 
445;  prescription  for,  442;  Wil- 
liam, 445. 

Lodge,  V.,  430. 

Lombroso,  After  Death — 
What?,  26,  898;  apparition  breath- 
ing, 694;  Dupre,  Giovanni,  898; 
transposition  of  the  senses,  26. 

London  Spiritualist  Alliance, 
W.  Stain  ton  Moses,  119. 

Longfellow,   402. 

Lost  Articles,  finding,  230,  272, 
273. 

Love  between  spirit  and  mor- 
tal, 633,  635. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  "Com- 
memoration Ode,"  35. 

Luther,  Martin,  75;  God  and 
Time,  897. 

Lyell,  73,  76. 

Lying  spirits.  See  EVIL 
SPIRITS. 

Lyman,  Mrs.,  697,  708. 

M.,  Dr.  A.  T.,  567. 

M.,  Mr.  F.  A.,  534. 

M.,  Mr.  F.  H.,  567. 

M.,  Miss,  516. 

M.,  Mrs.,  731,  732. 

McClellan,  Robert,  600. 

McClure,   Alexander,  255. 

Mabel,  383. 

Mabille,  Dr.,  hypnotic  sugges- 
tion, 212. 

Macalister,  Professor,  accusa- 
tion against  Mrs.  Piper,  452;  sit- 
ting of,  unsatisfactory,  454. 


MacDonough   messages,  525. 

Mackenzie,    Robert,  916. 

Macnish  on  dreams,   907. 

Madden,    Thomas,   264. 

Magnet,  medium  called  a,  568. 

Magnetism  and  dowsing,  134, 
136;  telekinetic,  164. 

Magus,  342,  358. 

Maidment,  684. 

Maignan,    898. 

Mana,  204. 

Manzini,   Signora   Maria,   909. 

Marble,  Joseph,  629,  632;  con- 
trol, 632;  Elliott,  Alice,  631; 
Grove,  Mrs.,  love  for,  631,  633, 
634;  Martin,  633;  photograph  of, 
identified,  635,  636;  prayer  heard 
by  spirits,  634;  unbelief  of, 
635. 

Marconi,  124. 

Margaret  (Hodgson  communi- 
cation), 694. 

Margaret  (Shaw),  496,  497, 
508,  509. 

Margaret,  Aunt,  557. 

Margie,  731. 

"  M  argrane,"  112. 

Maria,  447. 

Marion,  439. 

Marion,   Cousin,  814. 

Marmie,   484. 

Mars,  558,  559. 

Marshall,  Rutgers,  454. 

Marte,    Mr.,   524,   598. 

Marteville,  Mme.,  receipt  lo- 
cated by  Swedenborg,  230. 

Mary,   814. 

Material  things,  the  luxury  of, 
71. 

Materialistic  evolution,  75. 

Materialization,  155-160,  603, 
628;  Bartlett,  George  C.,  156; 
Cox,  Sergeant,  159;  Crookes, 
Sir  William,  157;  Crookes,  Lady, 
158;  of  a  hand,  157,  158;  figure 
playing  on  accordion,  159;  Home, 
D.  D.,  158;  Moses,  W.  Stainton, 
158,  191;  Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  158; 
semi-transparent,  159;  Speer,  Dr. 
Stanhope,  158,  159;  Speer,  Mrs. 
Stanhope,  159;  telekinesis  and, 
156;  without  cabinets,  160;  and 
lights,  188;  temperature  of,  158. 
See  also  APPARITIONS. 


Glossarial  Index.     Volume  II  begins  on  page  513.    973 


Matter,  passing  through  mat- 
ter, 153,  154,  171,  191;  mind  and, 
160. 

Maury's  dream,  895. 

Medium,  body  of,  relation  of 
controls  to,  5*4,  588,  639;  com- 
munications influenced  by,  191, 
477,  556,  678;  definition  of,  103, 
227;  hands  of,  cold,  454;  head 
of,  pains  in,  649,  650;  a  "light," 
746 ;  a  "  machine,"  746 ;  a  M  mag- 
net," 568;  organization  of,  af- 
fects results,  191,  369;  pulse  of, 
454;  spirit  of,  "going  out,"  441, 
571;  suffering  during  control, 
476,  479,  497;  telekinetic  phe- 
nomena injure  the,  582. 

Mediumistic  phenomena,  396 ; 
trances  and  hypnotism,  833,  834. 

Mediums,  adaptability  to  con- 
trols, 524,  527,  574,  741,  783; 
characteristics  of,  112;  consulting, 
829;  fatigued  after  physical  phe- 
nomena, 96,  110,  116,  123,  134, 
184;  health  of,  319;  injured  by 
indiscriminate  experiments,  527; 
paid,  114;  in  the  spirit  world, 
726,  746;  women  as,  671;  writ- 
ing, 231. 

Mediumship,  435;  beginnings 
of,  861;  benefits  of,  236;  com- 
municator ignorant  of,  417;  ex- 
ercise of:  sometimes  harmful, 
755;  health  and,  840;  multiple 
personality  and,  839;  physiog- 
nomical characteristics  and,  538, 
539;  somnambulism  and,  865. 
See  also  APPARITIONS,  AUTOKI- 
NESIS,  BRAIN,  COMMUNICATIONS, 
CORD,  DOWSING,  DREAMS,  IMPER- 
SONATION, INFLOW,  INFLUENCE, 
INSANITY,  LIGHT,  LIGHTS,  ME- 
DIUM, MEDIUMISTIC,  MEDIUMS, 
MEMORIES,  MEMORY,  PENCIL, 
PERSONALITY,  PHENOMENA,  POS- 
SESSION, PSYCHIC,  SENSITIVES, 
SITTER,  SITTERS,  SITTINGS,  SLEEP, 
SUBLIMINAL,  TRANCE,  TRANCES. 

Meissner,  Mrae.  S.  Radford 
de:  Butt,  Major:  communication 
from,  262;  prophecy,  873;  Stead, 
W.  T.,  communication  from,  262; 
There  Are  No  Dead,  251. 

Memories,  sitters' :  tapping,  735 ; 


subconscious,  900,  904;  sublimi- 
nal, 417.  See  also  COSMIC  SOUL. 

Memory,  collective,  295;  cos- 
mic, 936;  lack  of:  on  part  of 
controls,  656;  recovered,  899;  of 
spirits,  937;  trance:  of  Mrs. 
Piper,  457,  635,  834.  See  alto 
COSMIC  SOUL. 

Mental,  experiences  from  with- 
out, 888;  questions  answered, 
260. 

Mentor,  179,  350,  358. 

Mesmer,  310. 

Messages,  musical,  178;  two: 
at  same  time,  186.  See  also 
COMMUNICATIONS. 

Metals,  dowsing  for.  See 
DOWSING  FOR  METALS. 

Metetherial  world,  Myers,  F. 
W.  H.:  on  the,  333. 

Michelangelo,   73. 

Milbanke,  Lady,  success  with 
divining  rod,  124,  129. 

Mill,  John  Stuart:  and  a 
Deputy  God,  68. 

Milton,   73. 

Mind,  300,  302;  body  and,  315; 
brain  and,  35,  314;  cosmic,  37,  295, 
300,  307,  326,  742,  794;  floating 
about  the  universe,  276;  and 
force,  38.  See  also  COSMIC  SOUL. 
Individual:  variability  of  the, 
316;  without  permanent  limits, 
33;  and  matter,  30,  167,  302;  dis- 
tinct from  matter  and  force,  38; 
outgrows  matter,  31;  measura- 
bility  and,  316;  reading,  controls 
and,  405,  414;  and  soul,  29; 
mind  and,  311.  See  also  SOUL. 

Mind-potential,  30,  315;  dream 
state  and,  318;  varies,  315. 

Minna,  714. 

Miriam,   827. 

Mirror   writing,  489,   508. 

Mitchell,  Dr.  S.  Weir,  482. 

"Mitchell,  Mrs.,"  523. 

Monism  and  dualism,  36.  8es 
also  COSMIC  SOUL. 

Monogamy,  evolution  of,  48. 

Moore,  Dr.,  baby  of,  494. 

Morality,  conformity  and,  6; 
in  dreams,  927;  and  belief  in 
immortality  and  personal  gods, 
73.  Set  alto  ETHICS. 


974    Glossarial  Index.     Volume  11  begins  on  page  518. 


Horse  code,  messages  in,  176, 
182. 

Mortals  are  imprisoned  spirits, 
581,  598. 

Moses,  Rev.  William  Stainton, 
118f.,  615,  677;  Abercromby, 
Blanche,  349;  atmosphere,  op- 
pressive, 363,  378;  aura,  psychic: 
aids  communication,  343,  and 

automatic  writing,  343;  C , 

Emily,  347;  cabinet,  151;  cameo, 
cutting  of,  179;  churchyards 
and  ghosts,  359;  confusion  in 
communications  from,  527;  con- 
fusion of  after  death,  537; 
controls  of,  342;  description 
of,  537;  and  Doctor,  545; 
evil  spirits,  542,  546,  939;  fire- 
handling,  208;  guides,  the  term, 
542,  545;  handwriting  of  com- 
municators, 349,  350;  Hodgson, 
Richard,  likeness  to,  538;  D.  D. 
Home,  106;  identity  of  com- 
municators, 345;  Imperator,  545; 
Imperator  group,  543,  545;  Im- 
perator's  teaching  of,  345;  im- 
prisoned spirits,  581 ;  inspira- 
tional addresses,  191;  levitation, 
199;  light,  column  of,  191, 
around  head  of,  189,  seeing 
through  Mrs.  Piper's,  544; 
"spirit"  lights,  150f.,  188,  ob- 
jective and  subjective,  190,  with- 
out radiance,  190,  signal,  188; 
likeness  to  Foster,  Hodgson,  and 
Pelham,  538,  539;  materializa- 
tion, 158;  matter  passing  through 
matter,  154,  171,  191;  musical 
sounds,  148,  187,  190,  191,  192; 
Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  543,  544;  pas- 
sions and  appetites  in  spirit 
world,  542;  Pelham,  George: 
likeness  to,  538;  physical  phe- 
nomena, 546,  582;  Mrs.  Piper 
compared  with,  347;  raps,  145, 
146,  342;  Rector,  545;  return 
of,  580;  scent  oozing  out  of 
head  of,  190;  scent  at  seances, 
158,  190;  scientific  instinct  lack- 
ing, 121 ;  sounds  independent  of 
the  ear,  147;  Speer,  Charlton  T., 
543;  Speer,  Mrs.,  546;  Spirit 
Teachings,  361 ;  steam  roller  case, 
350;  success  at  seances,  condi- 


tions of,  370;  table-tipping,  170; 
telekinesis,  122,  191,  546,  582; 
thought  in  communications  dif- 
ferent from  his  own,  344;  Wal- 
lace, Alfred  Russel,  544;  Wal- 
lace, spirit  named,  544;  writing, 
direct,  191,  192,  341;  writing 
heteromatic,  329,  341,  343,  not  at 
command  of  writer,  344,  fatigue 
after,  344,  reading  during,  344. 

Moutonnier,  Professor  C.,  with 
Mrs.  Thompson,  618f. 

Mozart,  inspiration  of,  897. 

Miiller,  Max,  colors,  distinc- 
tion of,  60. 

Mullins,  H.  W.,  dowsing,  127. 

Mullins,  John,  dowsing,  125, 
126,  128,  130,  133,  135;  dowsing, 
blindfolded,  127;  dowsing  for 
metals,  130;  faith  in  divining 
rod,  126. 

Miinsterberg,  Professor  Hugo, 
739. 

Murray,  Professor  Gilbert, 
100. 

Muscle  reading,  381,  448. 

Music,  in  dreams,  892,  898;  at 
seance,  178. 

Musical  sounds,  147,  148;  at 
seances,  149;  location  of,  190; 
Moses,  W.  Stainton,  148,  187, 
190;  Speer,  Dr.  Stanhope,  148, 
187;  Speer,  Mrs.,  148;  variety 
of,  147,  190,  192. 

Myers,  Ernest,  641. 

Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  99,  118,  372, 
454,  463,  529,  615,  640,  663,  764; 
Abercromby,  Blanche,  349 ; 
d2neid,  778;  apparitions  not 
proof  of  presence  of  spirits,  665; 
"Anna  virumque  cano,"  777; 
automatic  and  heteromatic,  332, 
336;  automatism,  definition  of, 
332;  Barrett,  Sir  William  F.,  666; 
blisters  by  suggestion,  212;  bod- 
ies of  drowned  boys,  locating, 
290;  calls  of  mortals  heard  by, 
644,  645;  cardboard  figures,  sit- 
ters looking  like,  665;  clairvoy- 
ance, telepathic:  in  dream,  915; 
cleansed  from  earth,  desired  to 
be,  644;  CmrdeAbig,  654;  com- 
municating like  looking  at  misty 
picture,  640;  communications 


Glossarial  Index.     Volume  II  "begins  on  page  51S.    975 


from:  should  not  be  sought,  639, 
664;  concentrate,  desire  to,  645; 
confused,  641,  644;  conscious- 
ness merging  into  another,  639; 
controls,  various,  637;  cosmic 
energy,  296;  cross  correspond- 
ence, "768 ;  death,  296 ;  death,  ex- 
periences after,  641;  death,  un- 
consciousness after,  653,  664; 
dreams  and  telepathy,  914;  earth- 
bound,  danger  of  becoming,  639; 
Edmunds,  Miss,  645;  effort  un- 
availing, no,  655;  Ernest,  641; 
fire-handling,  208;  Forbes,  Tal- 
bot,  644;  Greek  and  Latin,  656; 
Gurney,  Edmund:  impression  of 
death  of,  670;  happiness  of,  465, 
639,  644,  655;  Hodgson,  Richard: 
letter  from,  666;  Human  Person- 
ality and  its  Survival  of  Bodily 
Death,  118,  914;  hypnotism,  332; 
Imperator,  345;  imprisoned  souls, 
665;  infinite,  thought  the  finite 
could  control  the,  639;  James, 
Professor  William,  641;  933; 
Lang,  Andrew,  666;  Lethe,  775; 
life,  296;  letter,  posthumous, 
641,  642,  667;  materialization, 
158;  metethereal  world,  333; 
missionary,  spirit  of,  664;  Moses, 
William  Stainton,  119,  121;  notes, 
taking,  641,  642;  pen,  prefers:  to 
pencil,  662;  personated,  639; 
phantasms,  320;  phantasms,  pro- 
jected, 665;  Phantasmt  of  the 
Living,  260;  Piddington,  J.  G., 
666;  plane,  belongs  to  a  high,  664; 
Podmore,  Frank,  666;  pow- 
er, ultimate  vitalizing,  333;  pulse 
slowed  by  suggestion,  212;  rest 
destroyed  by  calls  of  sitters  and 
mediums,  646;  Richet,  Professor 
Charles,  641,  645;  script,  strange- 
ly dated,  653;  S.  P.  R.  in  spirit 
world,  726;  split  up,  asks  not  to 
be,  645;  spiritism,  effect  of:  on, 
933;  Storie,  Mrs.,  914;  sublimi- 
nal uprushes,  296;  sympathetic 
sitters  get  most  evidential  mat- 
ter, 641 ;  telepathy  and  dreams, 
914;  telepathy  and  telesthesia, 
226;  telergy,  320;  telopsis,  case 
of,  290;  Tennyson,  644;  Thomp- 
son, Mrs.  Edmond,  602,  605; 


thought  reading,  244 ;  "  Veni, 
vidi,  vici,"  777;  Verrall,  Mrs., 
666;  visions  not  all  telepathic, 
259 ;  voice  of  medium,  hears  him- 
self using,  641 ;  "  I  yearn  to  you 
and  cannot  write,"  653;  work  of: 
in  spirit  world,  638. 

Mystery,  the  powers  of,  65. 

Mysticism,  true  and  false, 
313. 

N.,  Mr.  M.,  prophesies  through 
Mrs.  Piper,  418. 

Names,  of  controls  of  W. 
Stainton  Moses,  342;  correctly 
given,  523;  difficulty  in  getting, 
386,  387,  389,  492,  523,  693,  714, 
790.  See  also  EVIDENCE.  Told 
by  C.  H.  Foster,  222,  223,  225; 
written  in  blood,  211,  243;  wrong: 
given  by  communicator,  735; 
wrong:  but  of  similar  sound, 
first  given,  455. 

Napier,  H.  B.,  dowsing,  130. 

Napoleon,  11,  831. 

Nature,  beneficence  of,  947. 

Necklace  raised  on  end,  108. 

Nellie,  502. 

Nelly.    See  THOMPSON. 

Neptune,  566;  discovery  of. 
231. 

Nereis,  peculiarity  of  the,  46. 

Nerve  function  and  subliminal 
self,  896. 

Nervous  system,  evolution  of 
the,  17;  voluntary  and  involun- 
tary, 20.  See  also  SENSES,  SOLAR 
PLEXUS. 

Newbold,  Professor  W.  R., 
100;  Baker,  William,  859;  body 
and  mind,  533;  buying  Billy,  732; 
evidence,  cumulative,  251;  F.  A. 
M.,  534;  Hodgson,  Richard: 
communications  from,  717,  719, 
744;  Imperator  group,  721;  M, 
Mr.  F.  A.,  534;  mind  and  body, 
533;  Moses,  W.  Stainton,  721, 
communication  from,  542;  phe- 
nomena, recurrent  waves  of,  98; 
prescription  for,  443;  Hodgson 
on  Moses'  report  of,  531 ;  Sally, 
Aunt,  532;  sittings  of,  527;  tele- 
pathic theory,  531,  533;  thought 
transference,  250. 

Newcomb,    Professor,    100. 


976     Olossaridl  Index.     Volume  II  begins  on  page  513. 


"  Newell,"  Mr.,  421,  422. 

Newnham,  Rev.  P.  H.,  vision 
of  distant  person,  257. 

Nichols,  Professor  Herbert, 
495. 

Nigger-talk,  701. 

Nightmare,  earth  life  a,  572. 

Nikisch,  telepathy,  219. 

Nirvana,    937. 

Nodier,   Lydia,  898. 

Noise  at  dark  seance,  115. 

Norton,  Professor  C.   E.,  494. 

Obsession  by  evil  spirits,  527, 
536. 

Ocean,  cosmic,  947. 

Ocean,    psychic,   949. 

Odorifer,    190. 

Odors  brought  to  seances,  122, 
158. 

Old  people  grow  young  in  spirit 
world,  826. 

Oldfarm,  713. 

Opportunity  and  capacity,  724. 

Orenberg,  468. 

Organic  and  inorganic,  15. 

Osborne,  Miss  E.  V.,  594. 

Osborne,  Gertrude,  594. 

Other-worldliness,  932. 

Owl's  Head,  715. 

Oyster-shell  and  pearl,  Fos- 
ter's vision  of,  224. 

P 's  music-stand  and  raps, 

94f. 

"Padding,"  427. 

Page  will,  482. 

Pain  in  the  spirit  world,  con- 
tradictions, 497,  501. 

Pains  in  head  of  medium,  649, 
650. 

Palissy,  Bernard,  dreams,  898. 

Palladino,  Eusapia,  97,  155, 
160,  185,  741. 

Pantheism,  299.  See  alto  COS- 
MIC SOUL. 

Paqnet,  Mrs.  Agnes,  appari- 
tion of  Edmund  Dunn,  268. 

Paradox,  knowledge  and,  299. 

Parallelism,  34,  36. 

Parker,  Mary  E.,  408. 

Parker,  N.,  281. 

Passions  and  appetites  in 
spirit  world,  536,  542.  See  also 
CHARACTER. 

Passwords,  735. 


Paul,  Saint,  770. 

Paulsen,  unity  of  inner  life, 
300;  world-soul,  301. 

Peary,  878,  947. 

Pease,  Edward  R.,  dowsing, 
126. 

"Pelham,"  George,  372,  383, 
462,  463,  464,  489,  490,  510,  513, 
540,  558;  A,  761;  Alice,  467;  as- 
tral body,  468;  B,  761;  Baker, 
William,  859;  Berwick,  468;  box, 
tin,  469;  communicate,  promise 
to,  464;  communication,  first, 

465,  process   of,  477,  520;  com- 
munications    from :     characteris- 
tics     of,    712;     confused     after 
death,  468;  departed   for  higher 
spheres,    May,     1897,    592;     de- 
pression,   469,    476;    dream    life, 
life   on  earth   a,   520;    dreaming 
it  out,  communicator,  750;  evolu- 
tion   in    the    spirit    world,    515; 
father  of,  469,  477;  Greek,  548, 
549;  Gurney,  Edmund,  536;  hap- 
pier   in    spirit    world,   464,    476; 
Hodgson,  Richard,  on,  464,  695; 
Imperator,    583;    Junot    sittings, 
790,  795,  797,  801,  805,  813,  818; 
Katharine,    466;    light,    wasting, 
537;    likeness    to    Foster,   Hodg- 
son,   and    Moses,    538,    539;    M, 
Miss,  516;  MS.  of,  466;  mistakes, 
515;    Moses,    W.    Stainton,    536; 
mother   of,   471;   obsession,   527; 
Orenberg,    468;     pass     sentence, 
592;    passions    and    appetites    in 
spirit  world,  536;  personality  of, 
540;     Fhinuit,     Dr.,     announces, 
465;  Phinuit,  Dr.,  compared  with, 
516;      Piper,      Mrs.,      recognizes 
photograph  of,  474;  progress  of, 
in    spirit    world,    939;    prophecy, 
515;    protoplasm,   385,   392,   860; 
reappearance    of,    592;    Rogers, 

466,  468;    Rogers,   Martha,   468; 
sin    eliminated    in    spirit    world, 
536;   test   given  to   James   How- 
ard, 475;  Thompson,  Agnes,  751; 
Thompson,        Edwin,        message 
from,  750;  work  as  control  fin- 
ished, 591. 

Pencil,  change  of:  in  hetero- 
matic  writing,  662,  798;  moved, 
176. 


Glossarial  Index.     Volume  II  begins  on  page  518.    977 


Pencils,  rejected  by  communi- 
cators, 388. 

Pendule  explorateur,  139. 

Pendulum  set  in  motion  inside 
glass  case,  108. 

Perception  through  vibrations, 
9. 

Perceptions  and  the  intellect, 
38.  See  also  SENSES. 

Percepts  and  concepts,  43. 
See  also  SENSES. 

Percival  control,  622;  matter 
passing  through  matter,  154; 
records  of  seances  with  W. 
Stainton  Moses,  120;  sittings, 
615,  765. 

Perkins,  George,  505;  Baldwin, 
George,  504;  Fred,  504. 

Persecution,  theology  and,  74, 
76. 

Personality,  center  of  associa- 
tion, 297,  470,  913;  change  of, 
437,  cosmic  soul  and,  867;  dis- 
sociated, 330;  hypnosis  and,  837; 
knowledge  of  facts  and,  481 ;  me- 
diumship  and,  839,  849;  multiple, 
330,  413,  451,  457,  836,  866,  913; 
noise  in  head,  836,  838,  840;  real 
and  imaginary,  397;  secondary, 
407,  413,  444,  451,  474,  516,  519, 
605,  835,  841;  dogs  and,  424;  sex 
and,  421,  841 ;  simply  a  capacity 
to  produce  certain  impressions, 
867f.,  918;  sunstroke  and,  838; 
what  is  a,  657.  See  also  BOURNE, 
BREWIN,  IDENTITY,  INDIVIDUAL- 
ITY, MEDIUMSHIP. 

Peter  Ibbetson,  833. 

Phantasms,  ancient  Egyptian 
sages,  855;  Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  on, 
320;  projected,  665.  See  also 
APPARITIONS. 

Phantasms  of  the  Dead  (Gur- 
ney  and  Myers),  260. 

Phantasms  of  the  Living  (Gur- 
ney,  Myers,  and  Podmore), 
260. 

Phillips,  567. 

Philosophy  and  assumptions, 
91;  and  curiosity,  89;  errors  of, 
7;  facts:  obvious  and,  52;  and 
imagination,  89,  91;  and  juggling 
with  words,  88;  mediaeval:  wast- 
ing time  on,  89. 


Philosophy  of  Mysticism  (Du 
Prel),  897. 

Phinuit,  Dr.,  372,  381,  388,  390, 
397,  402,  403,  413-451,  455,  497, 
499,  511,  518,  536,  555,  656,  762; 
account  of  himself,  403,  501;  and 
body  of  medium,  588;  control, 
860;  controls:  two:  at  same  time, 
462;  controversy  regarding,  390, 
443;  Darwin,  564;  diagnosis  and 
prescription,  388,  393,  401,  419, 
427,  429,  436,  439,  442,  443,  446, 
448,507;  earthbound,  584,  585, 589; 
earthbound  no  longer,  758;  Finet, 
Dr.,  401,  402;  fishing,  448,  523; 
five-pound  note,  760;  Fred,  589; 
French,  speaking,  404,  414,  420, 
426,  448,  456,  473;  James,  Alice, 
467;  James,  Professor  William, 
467;  James,  Professor  William, 
on,  455,  456;  Katharine,  467;  last 
appearance  of,  527;  last  news  of, 
758;  Leaf,  Dr.,  calls  him  Mrs. 
Piper's  secondary  personality, 
451 ;  "  Light  to  me,  the  body  is," 
588;  "Light,  spirits  are  all,"  541; 
"Light,  talking  to  the,"  568; 
Lodge,  Sir  Oliver  J.,  426,  589; 
mistakes  of,  523;  Pelham, 
George,  465;  Pelham,  George: 
compared  with,  516;  person- 
ality of,  434;  prophecy,  487, 
488,  490,  494,  505,  506;  psychom- 
etry,  488,  490;  removal  of,  584; 
return,  not  anxious  to,  759;  Scott, 
Sir  Walter,  564;  Shaler,  Profes- 
sor N.  S.,  on,  481;  spiritism: 
did  not  believe  in:  when  on  earth, 
542;  "String,  I  go  in  on  a,"  860; 
surname  of,  403,  584;  thought 
reading,  589;  twaddle,  457; 
Washington,  George,  565. 

Phonograph    at    sittings,    510. 

Physical  and  psychical,  167. 

Physical  phenomena,  82,  83, 
92,  435,  436;  eight  classes  of,  92; 
dependent  on  physical  condition 
of  medium,  170;  Hartmann,  Ed- 
ward von,  298;  sitters  who  are 
homogeneous  generally  get  best, 
103;  recurrent  waves  of,  98; 
source  of,  546.  See  also  APPA- 
RITIONS, APPORT,  AUTOKINESIS, 
BARRETT,  COLD  AIR,  CROOKES, 


978     Glossarial  Index.     Volume  11  begins  on  page  518. 


FOSTER,  Fox,  HAND,  LIGHT, 
LIGHTS,  MATTER,  MOSES,  ODORS, 
SOUNDS,  TELEKINESIS,  TEMPERA- 
TURE, WIND. 

Piano,  heard  telakoustically  by 
control,  795;  notes  struck  on,  by 
spirits,  108. 

Piddington,  J.  G.,  100,  708, 
739;  Cartwright,  Mrs.,  606,  607; 
cross  correspondence,  763,  765; 
D,  Mr.,  607;  Hodgson,  Richard, 
687,  communications  from,  702, 
742;  Huldah  episode,  702;  Phi- 
nuit,  Dr.,  616;  Piper,  Mrs.,  616; 
report  on  Mrs.  Thompson,  374, 
602;  "Row,  beastly,"  617;  Scott, 
Mrs.,  765;  secondary  personality, 
607;  Sidgwick  control,  623;  tele- 
pathic theory,  621 ;  teloptic 
vision  of,  617;  Thompson,  Mrs. 
Edmond,  602-28 ;  Thompson, 
Isaac  C.,  communication  of,  753; 
Thompson,  Nelly,  606,  616. 

Peirce,    Professor  J.   M.,  480. 

Piper,  Mrs.,  114,  360,  368,  381; 
Alice,  634;  anesthesia,  834;  bank- 
book, 458 ;  "  Battered  and  worn," 
527;  Casford  Hall,  633;  charac- 
ter of,  393,  397,  411,  419,  426, 
457,  481,  494;  Chlorine,  401,  861; 
communications,  character  of, 
238,  378;  controls  of,  401,  402, 
463;  controls,  two:  at  same  time, 
461,  462,  535;  "Cord,  came  in  on 
a,"  756;  cross  correspondence, 
761,  763,  766;  earth  life  dark, 
925,  Eliot,  George,  552,  568; 
Elisa,  Mme.,  473;  English  sit- 
tings, 426,  629,  737,  749;  fishing 
process,  427,  448;  French  not 
known  by,  but  spoken  through, 
404,  414,  420,  448, 456,  473;  Greek, 
548;  H,  Dr.  and  Mrs.  L.  E., 
481;  Halsford  Hall,  633;  hand, 
action  of,  745;  Hodgson  com- 
munications, 689  et  seq.;  Hodg- 
son control,  741,  not  recognized 
by,  535;  Hodgson,  Richard: 
first  report,  400,  second  re- 
port, 460;  Impersonation  beyond 
mortal  capacity,  661 ;  Imperator 
regime  a  benefit  to,  746;  Italian, 
473;  Junot  sittings,  785;  Lethe, 
774;  light  of,  216;  living  person 


speaking  through,  255;  Macalis- 
ter,  Professor,  452;  Marble, 
Joseph,  633  et  »eq.,  recognizes 
photograph  of,  635,  636;  medium- 
ship,  initiation  into,  401,  861; 
memory  of,  457,  635,  834; 
Mitchell,  Dr.  S.  Weir,  on,  482; 
Moses,  W.  Stainton:  compared 
with,  347;  Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  655; 
Myers  control,  638;  the  Page 
will,  482;  Pelham,  George: 
photograph  of,  474;  "Phillips," 
568;  Peirce,  Professor  J.  M.:  on, 
480;  Rector,  633,  747;  ring,  Dr. 
Hodgson's,  694,  697;  Roland, 
516;  Sandford,  Mrs.  Kate,  633; 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  552;  Shaler, 
Professor  and  Mrs.  N.  S.,  481; 
snaps  in  head  of,  756,  840,  862; 
Sutton  sittings,  483;  talking  and 
writing  at  same  time,  461,  518, 
546;  telekinetic  phenomena,  718; 
telepathy,  227;  Thompson,  Isaac 
C.,  communications,  749;  thought 
transference,  289;  trance  memory 
of,  457,  635,  834;  trances,  nature 
of,  381,  400,  401,  830;  Vanderbilt, 
Commodore,  861;  West,  Jim,  634; 
Wiltse,  Dr.,  876;  writing,  hetero- 
matic,  329,  675;  development  of, 
460;  and  speaking  at  same  time, 
186,  461,  518,  546.  See  PHINUIT. 

Planchette,    220,    672,   674. 

Plato,  453;  idea,  on  the,  323; 

Platonists  and  Aristotelians, 
452. 

Plowman,    dowsing,    135. 

Podmore,  Frank,  100,  117,  569, 
700;  apparitions,  250;  Appari- 
tions and  Thought  Transference, 
250;  communications,  nonsensi- 
cal, 239;  cross  correspondence, 
772;  Didier,  Alexis,  550;  evidence, 
method  of  dealing  with,  96; 
fire-handling  explained  away, 
202;  information  given  in 
trances,  550;  language,  commu- 
nications in  unknown,  242;  Lethe 
incident,  774;  matter  passing 
through  matter,  154;  Modern 
Spiritualism,  229;  Newer  Spirit- 
ualism, 603;  Phantasms  of  the 
Living,  260;  Poltergeists,  117; 
posthumous  letters,  733;  Sidg- 


Glossarial  Index.     Volume  II  begins  on  page  51S.    979 


wick  heteromatic  writing,  624; 
spiritualistic  explanation  of  phe- 
nomena, 603;  subliminal  soul, 
336;  supernormal  agency,  733, 
741;  survival,  evidence  for,  773; 
Thompson,  Mrs.  Edmond,  603; 
trances,  information  given  in, 
550. 

Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  "  Raven, 
The,"  308,  324. 

Poetry  and  knowledge,  80;  and 
science,  80. 

Poltergeists,  117,  359. 

Ponchini,  Loretta,  402. 

Pope,  Miss  Theodate,  693,  695, 
696,  730. 

Portraits,  recognized  by  medi- 
ums, 474,  635. 

Possession  (=Action  of  a 
body  under  the  apparent  con- 
trol of  a  soul  not  its  own),  308, 
329,  557,  736,  863;  automatism 
and,  331;  cosmic  soul  and,  338; 
dissociation  and,  330;  dramatic, 
364  et  »eq.;  may  be  telepathic, 
863;  telesthesia  and,  364.  See 
also  AUTOMATISM,  HETEROMA- 
TISM,  MEDIUMSHIP. 

Posthumous  letters,  371,  411, 
641,  642,  667,  773. 

Power,  depletion  of,  178,  207, 
208,  209 ;  "  Not  ourselves,"  21 ; 
ultimate  vitalizing,  333.  See 
PSYCHOKINESIS. 

Pratt,  Biela:  bust  of  Dr.  Rich- 
ard Hodgson,  728. 

Prayer,  philosophy  of,  815; 
reactive  effect  of,  183;  spirits 
helped  by,  352;  spirits  ask  for, 
815;  spirits  hear,  634;  spirits 
pray,  819,  827. 

Prediction,  cases  of,  255,  257, 
290;  effect  of,  625;  Neptune,  dis- 
covery of,  231.  See  alto 
PROPHECY. 

Pre-existence,  31. 

Prejudice  against  investiga- 
tion of  psychic  phenomena,  109, 
110;  natural,  198;  against  spir- 
itualism, 521.  Set  alto  EVI- 
DENCE. 

Premonition,  85;  Hosmer, 
Miss  Harriet,  272;  in  dreams, 
909.  See  alto  PROPHECY. 


Prescriptions,  spirit.  See  DIS- 
EASE and  PHINUIT. 

Prestidigitator,  Herman,  280. 
See  also  EVIDENCE. 

Prince,  Dr.  Morton,  100;  Dit- 
sociation  of  a  Personality,  838. 

Probability,  preponderance  of, 
874. 

Problems  solved  in  sleep,  898. 

Progress  in  spirit  world,  823, 
937,  940,  942.  See  also  CHAR- 
ACTER. 

Projected  phantasms,  665. 

Proof,  asking  for  final,  871; 
both  ways  unanswerable,  871; 
burden  of:  on  those  who  deny, 
112. 

Propaganda,  exposition  versus, 
373. 

Prophecy,  273,  274,  414,  418, 
422,  424,  436,  487,  488,  490,  494, 
505,  506,  515,  529,  557,  684,  821, 
873;  astral  light  of  a  person  and, 
414;  dangers  of,  625;  in  dreams, 
290,  903;  failure  of,  625.  See  also 
FOREBODING,  PREDICTION,  PRE- 
MONITION, PROPHETIC,  WARNING, 
WARNINGS,  Win. 

Protoplasm,  G.  P.  calls  me- 
diums, 385,  392,  860. 

Protozoa,  psychic  endowments 
of  the,  45. 

Prudens,  346,  598,  726. 

Psychic  force,  110;  ocean,  949; 
processes  and  physical  well-being, 
35. 

Psychical  Research  (Barrett), 
139. 

Psychical  Research,  Society 
for,  98. 

Psychokinesis  (—  Power  en- 
abling medium  to  manifest),  216. 

Psychological    speculation,   89. 

Psychology   (James),  30. 

Psychometry  (—Soul  meas- 
urement, i.e.,  divining  character, 
especially  from  articles  associ- 
ated with  a  person),  177,  240, 
242,  433,  441,  488,  490,  615.  See 
alto  COMMUNICATIONS,  COSMIC 
INFLOW,  THOUGHT  READING. 

Publishable,  best  evidence  not, 
516,  923. 

Pumpelly,       Professor,      100; 


980     Glossarial  Index.     Volume  II  "begins  on  page  513. 


friend's  death  announced  by  C. 
H.  Foster,  265;  dreams,  telotero- 
pathic,  258. 

Funning  in  heteromatic  script, 
677. 

Putnam,  Miss  Irene,  731,  732. 

Q.,  405,  410,  592,  594,  741.  See 
also  Miss  D. 

Questions,  mental,  answered, 
260. 

R.,  Miss  A.  M.,  lame  control, 
416. 

R.,  Mrs.  J.  E.  R.,  493. 

Radiation,  Professor  Sir 
William  F.  Barrett  on,  131. 

Railway  dream,  914. 

Ramadier,  Dr.,  hypnotic  sug- 
gestion, 212. 

Rameses,  857. 

Raphael,  73. 

Raps,  142,  145,  172,  181,  186, 
189,  498,  856;  A,  Miss,  340;  an- 
swered by,  178,  189;  Barrett, 
Professor  Sir  William,  145; 
Crookes,  Sir  William,  143,  145, 
186;  in  "Dance,"  184;  Davis  chil- 
dren, 181;  Foster,  Charles  H., 

145,  150,   Fox   sisters,   143,    144; 
Hazard,  Thomas  R.,  145;  Home, 
D.  D.,  143,  176;  accompanied  by 
lights,  150,  152;  Morse  code,  176, 
182;    Moses,    W.    Stainton,    145, 

146,  342,  359;  P— ,  94;  on  the 
pier  at  Southend,  146;  Speer,  Dr. 
Stanhope,  145;  on  the  street,  146; 
unwelcome,     183;     varieties     of, 
143,    189;    vary   with    nature    of 
response,   187;  writing  and  con- 
versation at  same  time  with,  186. 

Rawnsley,  684. 

Rawson,  Miss,  372,  638,  646; 
cross  correspondence,  763;  My- 
ers, F.  W.  H.,  655. 

Rawson,  Mr.,  thought  trans- 
ference, 249. 

Rayleigh,  Lord,  100,  641. 

Raymond,  Dr.  Rossiter,  dows- 
ing, 124. 

Reaction  from  extremes,  74; 
vital,  22. 

Read,  Dr.  L.  H.,  837. 

Reading,  spirits,  354. 

Realism.    See  IDEALISM. 

Reality  and  concepts,  S3,  53; 


dreams  and,  929;  external:  war- 
rant of,  883;  idea  is  the,  487, 
572,  884,  926.  See  also  IDEALISM. 

Reason  and  immortality,  945, 
946,  947. 

Record,  psychic,  266. 

Rector,  262,  342,  346,  372,  527, 
528,  545,  555,  598,  599,  632,  633, 
693,  728,  743,  747,  750;  com- 
municators assisted  by,  344; 
controls  Mrs.  Piper  after  Phinuit, 
528,  747;  cross  of,  677,  678,  744, 
754,  758;  Hodgson  communica- 
tions, 689, 695, 744, 747;  Imperator 
directs,  747;  Junot  sittings,  787, 
818,  824;  Pelham,  George,  591, 
752;  Phinuit,  Dr.,  758;  religious 
influence  on  communications, 
632;  writes  for  other  communi- 
cators, 746;  writing  affected  by 
manner  of  speech  of  communi- 
cators, 811. 

Reichenbach,  Baron  von,  202. 

Religious,  the  vast  majority 
are,  in  a  sense,  85. 

Rembrandt,  574. 

Remorse  in  spirit  world,  511, 
823. 

Renaissance,  Gobineau's,  555. 

Reports,   peculiarities  of,  375. 

Researches  in  the  Phenomena 
of  Spiritualism  (Crookes),  107. 

Reservoir,  cosmic,  470,  659, 
690,  735,  839,  905,  949;  of  in- 
formation, 266,  276,  285,  297, 
298,  315,  333;  of  potential  knowl- 
edge, 458.  See  also  SOCTL  COS- 
MIC, INFLOW,  STOREHOUSE. 

Resodeda,  365. 

Rest  of  spirits  destroyed  by 
calls  of  mortals,  646. 

Rich,  J.  Rogers,  391,  419. 

Richet,  Professor  Charles,  618, 
641,  645;  apparition  of  Arab 
breathing,  694;  thought  trans- 
ference, 247. 

Richmond,  Mrs.  C.  L.  V.,  233, 
882;  diagnosis,  233;  mediumistic 
lecturing,  233;  surgery,  233; 
writing,  heteromatic,  233. 

Ring,  Aunt  Anne's,  441;  Dr. 
Hodgson's,  697. 

Robbins,  Miss,  733. 

Robert,  414,  438,  493. 


Glossarial  Index.     Volume  II  begins  on  page  518.    981 


Robert,  Uncle,  441. 

Robinson,  Canon,  apparition 
of,  266. 

Roble.    See  JUNOT  SITTINGS. 

Rogers,  Mr.,  466,  468,  514; 
Martha,  468. 

Roget,  Thesaurus,  42. 

Roland,  516. 

Rounder.    See  JUNOT  SITTINGS. 

Rousseau,  892. 

Rover,  424. 

Royal  Society,  treatment  of 
Sir  William  Crookes,  109. 

Royce,  Professor,  100. 

Rubenstein,  574. 

Ruskin,  John,  psychometry 
from  letter  of,  240;  Turner  case, 
367. 

Russell,  General,  hypnotism, 
280;  school  of,  94. 

Ruth,  496,  497,  499, 

Rybalkin,  Dr.  J.,  blisters 
through  hypnotic  suggestion,  213. 

S.,  Mr.  F.  S.,  418. 

Sabrina,   560. 

Salem  Seer,  The  (Bartlett), 
111. 

Sally,  Aunt,  532. 

Salpetriere,  hypnotic  sugges- 
tion, 212. 

Salveton,  Dr.,  table-tipping, 
171,  173,  174. 

Sam,  611,  613,  809. 

Sammy,  799. 

Sandford,  Mrs.  Kate,  629,  632, 
633;  Martin,  633;  West,  Jim,  634. 

Sanity  and  hallucinations,  888. 

Sargent,  Epes,  350. 

Savage,  Rev.  M.  J.;  West, 
Robert:  communications,  415. 

Savage,  Rev.  W.  H.;  West, 
Robert:  communications,  415. 

Scents,  spirit,  158,  190,  358, 
359. 

Schiller,  Dr.  F.  C.  S.,  732. 

Schischmanog,  Dr.,  fire-walk- 
ing, 206. 

Schlevelle,  Dr.,  403. 

Schliville,  Dr.,  403,  584. 

Schopenhauer,  on  clairvoyance, 
101. 

Science  and  the  imagination, 
80;  and  poetry,  80. 

Scott,  Geoffrey,  765. 


Scott,  Julian,  hypnotism  and 
telopsis,  281. 

Scott,  Mrs.,  765;  cross  corre- 
spondence, 763. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  552,  558, 
564;  poetry,  565. 

Secondary  personality.  See 
PERSONALITY. 

Self-preservation  the  begin- 
ning of  ethics,  47. 

Sementini,  Dr.,  fire-handling, 
205. 

Sensations,  coupling  of,  40, 
41 ;  source  of,  161. 

Sense  of  color,  60,  62;  world 
of:  a  copy  of  world  of  ideas, 
324. 

Senses,  evolution  of  the,  21, 
23,  55  et  seq.;  new:  evolution  of, 
944;  number  of  the,  65;  rudimen- 
tary, 289.  See  also  COLOR  HEAR- 
ING, INSTINCTS,  NERVE,  NERVOUS 
SYSTEM,  NERVOUS  SYSTEMS,  PER- 
CEPTION, PERCEPTIONS,  PERCEPTS, 
SENSATIONS,  SENSE,  SIGHT,  TOUCH. 

Sensitives,  308.    See  MEDIUMS. 

Severn,  Mrs.  Joan  R.,  feels 
blow  received  by  distant  husband, 
256. 

Sex,  evolution  of,  48;  and  sec- 
ondary personality,  421. 

Sextus.  222. 

Shakespere,  19,  73,  453,  599, 
597;  and  Bacon,  576. 

Shaler,  Professor  N.  S.,  481, 

Siddons,  Mrs.,  402. 

Sidgwick,  Professor  Henry, 
99,  616,  622,  663,  686,  732,  762; 
communication  about  his  book, 
638;  controlling,  623;  cross  cor- 
respondence, 764;  Inaugural  ad- 
dress, 101;  Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  764; 
skeptical  even  in  spirit  world, 
641;  writing,  heteromatic,  623, 
624,  674. 

Sidgwick,  Mrs.,  99,  390;  clair- 
voyance and  telepathy,  281; 
dowsing,  139;  Hodgson  communi- 
cations, 742;  Phantatnu  of  th* 
Dead,  260;  straining  hypotheses, 
919. 

Sight,  defective,  60;  evolution 
of:  still  in  process,  60,  63;  sense 
of,  22. 


982     Glossarial  Index.     Volume  II  begins  on  page  518. 


Sill,  E.  R.,  878,  947. 

Sin  in  the  spirit  world,  536. 

Sis,  497,  499. 

Sitter,  concentration  on  part 
of,  458,  744;  communications  af- 
fected by,  182,  183,  283,  369,  370, 
411;  good:  mediumistic,  414,  452, 
454;  "Negative"  attitude  of 
good,  411;  repellent,  520;  re- 
straining influence  of,  632;  su- 
perior: and  controls,  369;  sym- 
pathetic: get  more  than  others, 
103,  284,  369,  452,  480,  520,  526, 
640,  745.  See  also  EVIDENCE. 

Sittings,  difference  in  quality 
of,  517;  successful,  369. 

Skepticism,  ignorance  and, 
264;  Lodge,  Sir  Oliver  J.  on  hos- 
tile attitude,  745;  in  the  spirit 
world,  615,  641.  See  also  EVI- 
DENCE. 

Skeptics,  Crookes,  Sir  William, 
treatment  of,  109;  Foster, 
Charles  H.,  got  best  results  for, 
284.  See  also  EVIDENCE. 

Skipping  best  for  some  read- 
ers, 379. 

Skirving,  Alexander,  256. 

Sleep,  ability  and,  831;  com- 
munication during,  520;  deep:  and 
dreams,  907;  functioning  during, 
879 ;  problems  solved  during,  898 ; 
Vaschide  on,  909;  walking,  119; 
writing  essays  during,  119.  See 
also  DREAMS. 

Sleeping,   spirits,  352. 

Sludge  the  Medium  (Brown- 
ing), 106. 

Smell,  sense  of:  transposition 
of,  27. 

Smith,   Mr.,   524. 

Smith,   Mrs.   Dew,   682. 

Smith,  Mrs.  Joseph  Lindon, 
fire-walking,  202. 

Smith,  Pearsall,  apparition  of 
a  friend,  271. 

Snake,  dream  of,  290;  skin,  441. 

Society  for  Psychical  Research, 
98. 

Socrates,  453. 

Solar  Plexus  and  telopsis,  137; 
hypnotism,  423. 

"Sollas,  Professor  W.  J.,  dows- 
ing, 126,  130,  134. 


Somnambulism,  27,  28;  and 
mediumship,  865;  dreams  in,  894; 
the  term,  865.  See  also  AUTO- 
KINESIS,  HYPNOSIS. 

Soul,  cosmic,  290,  294,  297, 
298,  299,  303,  307,  310,  325,  332, 
396,  397,  450,  456,  458,  551,  588, 
638,  869,  878,  893,  925;  death 
and  the,  302;  hypnotic  influence 
from  the,  899;  hypothesis,  re- 
statement of,  659;  individuality 
and  the,  305;  personality  and  the, 
867;  possession  and  the,  338; 
subliminal  self  and  the,  311,  333, 
334,  335,  660,  661,  842,  845,  896, 
902,  925;  telepathy  from  the, 
338,  709,  949.  See  also  CON- 
SCIOUSNESS, COSMIC;  ENERGY,  COS- 
MIC; INFLOW,  COSMIC;  MIND, 
COSMIC;  Eoo,  GOD,  INSPIRA- 
TION, KNOWLEDGE,  MEMORIES, 
MEMORY,  MONISM,  PANTHEISM, 
RESERVOIR,  SPIRITS,  TELEPATHY; 
STOREHOUSE,  SUBCONSCIOUS,  SUB- 
LIMINAL, WORLD-SOUL. 

Soul,  individual,  birth  of  the, 
587;  body  and,  21,  35,  877;  and 
consciousness,  29;  entrance  and 
exit  of  the,  423;  evolution  of  the, 
29 ;  and  mind,  29 ;  survival  of  the, 
30;  universal:  inlets  of  the,  298, 
301,  307,  308.  See  also  AURA, 
BODY,  BRAIN,  CONSCIOUSNESS, 
CORD,  FAITH  CURE,  MIND,  SOULS, 
SPIRIT,  SUBCONSCIOUS,  SUBLIMI- 
NAL, UMBILICAL. 

Soule,  Mrs.,  727. 

Souls  occupying  the  same 
body,  452;  of  flowers,  484. 

Sounds,  best  when  medium  is 
deeply  entranced,  148;  "Inde- 
pendent of  the  Ear,"  147;  "In- 
telligent," 181;  musical.  See 
MUSICAL.  See  also  CRACKINGS, 
DANCING,  KNOCKINGS,  Music, 
MUSICAL,  RAPS,  TAPPINGS,  TICK- 
mo,  VOICE,  VOICES,  WHIST- 
LINO. 

Space.     See  TIME  AND  SPACE. 

Spain,  war  with,  557. 

Sparks,  150.     See  also  LIGHTS. 

Speaking,  heteromatic:  Piper, 
Mrs.,  186. 

Speculation,  psychological,  89; 


'Glossarial  Index.    Volume  II  begins  on  page  518.    983 


concerning  the  transcendent  uni- 
verse, 79. 

Speer,  Charlton  T.,  testimony 
of,  543;  inspirational  addresses, 
191 ;  light,  column  of,  191 ;  lights, 
objective  and  subjective,  190; 
matter  passing  through  matter, 
191;  Moses,  W.  Stainton:  phe- 
nomena of,  189;  musical  sounds, 
191;  raps,  189;  scents  at  seances, 
190;  telekinesis,  191;  voices,  191; 
writing,  direct,  191,  192. 

Speer,  Constance  R.,  testimony 
of,  Moses,  W.  Stainton,  192. 

Speer,  Dr.  Stanhope,  testimony 
of,  360;  cameo  cut  at  seance, 
179;  communicates  with  Mrs. 
Speer  through  W.  Stainton 
Moses,  354;  Imperator,  186;  Im- 
perator  cross,  189;  Imperator 
materialization,  159;  levitation 
of  W.  Stainton  Moses,  200;  light, 
column  of,  188;  lights,  renewing 
of,  152;  materialization,  158;  ma- 
terialization of  shell,  179;  mat- 
ter passing  through  matter,  154; 
musical  sounds,  148,  187;  raps, 
145;  scent  at  seances,  158; 
seances  with  W.  Stainton  Moses, 
120,  122. 

Speer,  Mrs.,  testimony  of,  360, 

546;  C ,  Emily,  347;  cameo 

cut  at  seance,  179;  Imperator 
materialization,  159;  levitation 
of  W.  Stainton  Moses,  200;  ma- 
terialization, 159;  materialization 
of  shell,  179;  musical  sounds, 
148;  scent  at  stances,  158; 
stances  with  W.  Stainton  Moses, 
120,  122. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  73,  76,  453; 
the  beyond,  76;  ignorant  attitude 
regarding,  76;  the  Unknowable, 
77,  78. 

Spheres  in  the  spirit  world, 
537,  584,  615,  631. 

Spirit  body,  physical  body  and, 
852;  body,  shocks  to,  352;  child 
playing  with  mortal,  487;  dazed 
at  first,  465,  468,  936;  described 
by  medium,  415,  419;  drapery, 
358;  forgiveness  asked  by,  506; 
hypothesis  justified,  526;  illness, 
reflecting  on  last,  468;  musk,  358; 


soul  of  a :  saving  the,  506 ;  suffer- 
ing, mental,  506.  See  also  SOUL, 
SPIRITS,  SPIRIT  WORLD. 

Spirit  Teachings  (Moses),  361. 

Spiritism,  argument  for:  from 
likenesses,  538;  effect  of:  on 
Myers  and  Hodgson,  932;  fail- 
ures and  successes  favor,  525; 
hypothesis  of,  271,  760,  870; 
improves  its  votaries,  939;  issues 
of,  946;  telepathy  or,  260,  386, 
388,  392,  396  f. 

Spirits,  animals  seeing,  816; 
anthropomorphic  ideas  about, 
948;  calls  of  mortals  heard  by, 
644,  646;  communication:  possi- 
bility of:  not  known  to  all,  814; 
confused,  537,  936;  death,  not 
subject  to,  501;  disturbed  by 
mortals,  646;  and  dreams,  904, 
910,  915,  917,  920,  922;  evil,  171, 
186,  346,  357,  527,  536,  542,  546, 
939;  growing  up,  372,  424,  428, 
429,  826;  happier  than  mortals, 
511,  590,  594,  804,  807,  828,  925; 
imperfections  and  limitations  of, 
586,  646;  interfering  with  con- 
trol, 590;  manifesting  as  at  any 
stage  of  their  experience,  937; 
memory  of,  937;  pain,  not  sub- 
ject to,  501;  reading  closed 
books,  353;  remorseful,  511; 
rest  of,  646;  return,  not  anxious 
to,  759;  sleeping,  506;  sleeping 
for  many  years,  564;  and  trifles, 
904.  See  also  COSMIC  INFLOW, 
GHOSTS,  SPIRIT  WORLD. 

Spirit  world,  age  in,  424,  428, 
429,  826;  awaking  in,  468,  570, 
572,  574;  care  of  children  in, 
814;  condition  in,  759,  925;  de- 
sire and  fulfilment  in,  573; 
details  concerning:  cannot  be 
given,  936;  dream  states  and, 
925;  growing  up  in,  372,  424, 
428,  429,  826;  houses  in,  567; 
identity:  sense  of:  lost  for  a 
time  in,  434;  old  people  grow 
young  in,  826;  passions  and  ap- 
petites in,  542;  study  superflu- 
ous in,  566;  studying  law  and 
medicine  in,  825;  work  in,  263. 
See  also  BEYOND,  DEATH,  LIFE, 
SPIRITS,  SURVIVAL. 


984    Glossarial  Index.     Volume  11  begins  on  page  51S. 


Spiritual  world  and  the  un- 
known, 78. 

Stead,  W.  T.,  390;  communica- 
tion from,  262. 

Steam  roller  case,  350. 

Stevens,  Charles  E.,  757. 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis: 
dreams  and  dreaming,  318,  833, 
894,  898. 

Stigmata,  197,  210,  211,  243, 
261.  See  alto  AUTOKINESIS,  BLIS- 
TERS, CROSS,  LETTERS,  NAMES. 

Stillman,  W.  J.,  Autobiog- 
raphy of  a  Journalist,  183;  Miss 
A.,  340;  raps  unwelcome,  183; 
stance  with  a  child  of  seven, 
260;  telepathy  and  thought-read- 
ing, 240;  Turner  case,  366; 
voices,  187;  writing,  heteromatic: 
of  Miss  A,  340.  See  BROWN, 
MRS.  H.  K. 

Stone,  M.,  dowsing,  135. 

Storehouse,  limitless:  of  facts, 
266,  276,  285.  See  also  INFLOW; 
SOUL,  COSMIC. 

Storie,  Mrs.,  railway  dream, 
914. 

Strange  Story   (Bulwer),  112. 

"  Strength  "  of  communicator, 
408.  See  also  EVIDENCE  AND 
PSYCHOKINESIS. 

Striimpell  on  dreams,  907. 

Study  superfluous  in  spirit 
world,  566. 

Subconscious  mind,  Hodgson, 
Richard,  406;  precepts,  901; 
suggestion,  dowsing  and,  130. 
See  COSMIC  SOUL,  SUBLIMINAL. 

Subliminal  consciousness  (= 
Hypothesis  of  a  mind  beneath 
the  conscious  mind),  213,  224, 
277,  307,  309;  hypothesis  of 
the,  335,  336,  842;  memories,  417; 
memories,  telepathed,  839;  mem- 
ory, 224,  349;  and  outside  con- 
trols, 658,  661;  powers  of  per- 
sonation, 691 ;  recrudescence, 
669;  scrap  basket,  835;  supra- 
liminal  and,  833;  telesthesia, 
277;  theory,  lacks  in,  355; 
uprushes,  296;  subliminal  self, 
295,  312,  325,  449,  474,  651, 
653,  866,  892,  894,  904,  925;  cos- 
mic mind  and,  307;  cosmic  soul 


and,  311,  333,  334,  335,  660,  661, 
842,  845,  866,  902;  nerve  func- 
tion and,  896;  a  question-beg- 
ging term,  901;  supraliminal 
self  and,  333,  925;  supraliminal 
self  deceived  by,  651;  time  and 
place,  superior  to,  896.  See  also 
SOUL,  COSMIC  SOUL. 

Suffering  and  beneficence,  67; 
educating  influence  of,  69;  and 
evolution,  943.  See  BENEFI- 
CENCE. 

Suggestion,  phenomena  caused 
by,  212.  See  also  AUTOKINESIS, 
HYPNOSIS. 

Suggestive  therapeutics,  604. 
See  also  DISEASE,  FAITH  CUBE. 

Suicide,  536,  611,  613. 

Sun,  563. 

Supraliminal,  subliminal  and, 
333,  651,  925. 

Survival,  846;  author's  con- 
victions, 396;  controls  desire  to 
convince  of,  843;  dreams  and, 
914,  917,  920,  922,  924;  individ- 
uality and,  303,  311;  and  merit, 
656;  partial,  656;  indication  of, 
396.  See  also  IMMORTALITY, 
LIFE,  SPIRIT  WORLD. 

Button,  Eleanor,  484,  487,  488. 

Sutton,    Katharine,    483-489. 

Sutton,  Margaret,  484,  487. 

Sutton,  Rev.  S.  W.,  sitting 
with  Mrs.  Piper,  483. 

Sutton,  Mrs.  S.  W.,  483f.;  ap- 
parition of  Kakie,  484,  488,  489; 
Dodo,  483;  Eleanor,  484;  Kath- 
arine, 483;  Light  on  the  Hidden 
Way,  483. 

Swedenborg,  938;  fire  at 
Stockholm,  229;  Heaven,  938; 
inspiration  claimed  by,  339;  re- 
ceipt located  by,  230;  spirit  in- 
tercourse, 230. 

Swing,  movement  of  a,  170. 

Sympathetic  Ganglia.  See 
SOLAR  PLEXUS. 

T.,  407. 

Table-tipping,  82,  97,  102,  107, 
115,  155,  169,  170,  171,  172,  173, 
174,  175,  675;  answers  obtained 
by,  173;  intelligent,  169;  message 
from  an  absent  friend,  177;  re- 
freshing the  force  in,  175. 


'Glossaridl  Index.    Volume  II  begins  on  page  513.    985 


Talking  and  writing  at  same 
time,  461,  518,  546;  or  writing, 
communicator  ignorant  as  to 
whether  he  is,  590. 

Tandy,  Rev.  G.  M.,  apparition 
of  Canon  Robinson,  266. 

Tanner,  Dr.  Amy  E.,  840, 
864. 

Tappings  and  cracklings,  82. 

Tartini,  892,  898. 

Tawai,  480. 

Taylor,  Lieutenant  -  Colonel, 
lights,  149. 

Ted,  439,  445. 

Telakousis  (—Hearing  inde- 
pendently of  the  recognized 
senses),  spirits  and,  796;  telep- 
athy and,  289.  See  also  TELEP- 
ATHY. 

Telekinesis  (=rManifestations 
of  modes  of  force  not  yet  cor- 
related with  familiar  modes),  94, 
103,  104,  107,  168,  172,  191,  437; 
fatigue  of  medium  after,  96; 
and  materialization,  156;  molar, 
91  f.;  molecular,  142f.;  molar 
telepsychic,  167;  molecular  tele- 
psychic,  181  f.;  Moses,  W.  Stain- 
ton:  on,  546,  582;  possible  uses 
of,  165;  volition  and,  218.  See 
alto  ACCORDION',  BASKETS,  BELLS, 
BLINDS,  BOOK,  BUSTS,  CARD- 
PLATE,  CHAIRS,  CRADLE,  CUR- 
TAINS, DOWSING,  FAN,  HAIR- 
BRUSH, HANDKERCHIEF,  LATH, 
Music,  NECKLACE,  PENCIL,  PEN- 
DULUM, PIANO,  SOUNDS,  TABLE- 
TIPPING,  TABLES,  TELEKINETIC, 
WATER-BOTTLE,  WEIGHT,  Wix- 
DOW. 

Telekinetic,  force,  164;  phe- 
nomena, cause  of,  168;  phenom- 
ena now  rare,  381;  Sir  William 
Crookes  on,  163.  See  ZOOMAG- 
NETISM. 

Telepathic,  clairvoyance  in 
dream,  915;  dreams,  288,  909, 
914;  hypothesis  versus  spiritistic, 
260,  386,  388,  392,  423;  impres- 
sions, 240.  See  alto  TELEPATHY; 
theory,  531,  866;  theory  contro- 
verted, 392,  404,  405,  410,  416, 
491,  423,  424,  441,  444,  462,  465, 
469,  472,  499,  521,  523,  524,  525, 


526,  532,  533,  535,  605,  650,  693, 
705,  733,  734,  762. 

Telepathically,  spirits  im- 
pressing mediums,  390. 

Telepathy  (=The  effecting  of 
psychic  experience  through 
means  yet  unknown,  by  a  recog- 
nized agent),  177,  240,  242,  244, 
254,  255,  257,  458,  475,  632;  com- 
munications and,  371 ;  correla- 
tions of,  276;  cosmic  inflow  and, 
303;  cosmic  soul  and,  338,  709, 
949;  fundamental  difficulty  with, 
320;  dream  state  and,  287; 
dreams  and,  909,  914;  fraud  and, 
227;  grouping  of  phenomena  un- 
der, 260;  hypnosis  and,  277,  281; 
impersonation  and,  867;  inade- 
quate, 399;  experiences  outside, 
397;  possession  and,  863;  skepti- 
cism regarding,  219;  in  the  spirit 
world,  868;  spiritism  or,  260, 
386,  388,  392,  396 f.;  sympathy 
and,  220;  telakousis  and,  289"; 
telesthesia  and,  226,  289;  telopsis 
and,  281,  289,  290;  universal, 
285,  295;  possible  uses  of,  291; 
between  Professor  and  Mrs. 
Verrall,  682,  683;  visions  and, 
259;  education,  292.  See  also 
CLAIRVOYANCE,  COSMIC  INFLOW, 
HYPNOSIS,  INTUITION,  PRAYER, 
TELAKOUSIS,  TELEPATHIC,  TELE- 
PSYCHIC,  TELEPSYCHO&IS,  TEL- 
EROY,  TELESTHESIA,  TELOPSIS, 
TELOTEROPATHIC,  TELOTEHOPATHY, 
THOUGHT  READING. 

Telepsychosis  (:=A  telepathic 
experience),  218,  400;  Davis, 
Andrew  Jackson,  231;  Tuttle, 
Hudson,  231.  See  alto  TELEP- 
ATHY. 

Telergry  (—The  power  that 
projects  psychic  influences  or 
phantasms  at  a  distance), 
Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  on,  320;  visions 
and,  259.  See  alto  TELEPATHY. 

Telesio  on  consciousness,  29. 

Telesthesia  (^Sensitiveness  to 
telepathy,  telopsis,  telakousis), 
possession  and,  364;  prophetic, 
290;  subliminal,  277;  telepathy 
and,  226,  289.  See  alto  CLAIR- 
VOYANCE, TELEPATHY. 


986     Glossarial  Index.     Volume  II  begins  on  page  513. 


Telopsis  (z=Subj  active  vision 
of  actualities  out  of  sight),  229, 
267,  272,  290,  451,  495;  argument 
against,  371 ;  failures  in  attempts 
at,  527;  hypnotism  and,  281; 
solar  plexus  and,  137;  telepathy 
and,  281,  289,  290;  teloterop- 
athy  and,  290.  See  also  TELEP- 
ATHY, TELOTEROPATHY. 

Teloteropathy  (  —  Telepathy 
from  an  unknown  incarnate 
agent),  177,  232,  255,  265,  266, 
285,  371,  383,  441,  469,  650,  734; 
and  cross  correspondence,  761; 
in  dreams,  258;  telopsis  and, 
290.  See  also  TELEPATHY. 

Temperament,  judgment  and, 
391. 

Temperature,  158;  changes  of 
at  seances,  Crookes,  Sir  William: 
on,  153;  Foster  and  Eusapia, 
185. 

Tennyson,  644. 

Teresa,  Saint,  heteromatic 
writing,  340. 

Test  given  by  G.  P.,  475;  ques- 
tions, 697,  776,  778,  783;  value, 
701;  "evidential,"  377;  post- 
mortem, 253,  261.  See  PIPER, 

'LETTER. 

Thanksgiving  turkey,  773. 

Thaw,  Dr.  A.  B.,  497;  Aunt, 
502;  Blair,  511;  brother,  511; 
father,  511;  grandmother,  498; 

Dr.  H ,  506,  509;  Harry,  508; 

Ida,  504;  L ,  504,  511 ;  mother, 

500,  503;  sister,  504;  thought 
transference,  249. 

Thaw,  Mrs.  A.  B.,  497,  705; 
Alva,  506;  aunt,  503;  Elsine,  509; 
Emily,  505;  Emma,  505;  father's 
invention,  505;  Heffern,  Miss 
Ellen,  507;  Margaret,  565;  Nellie, 
502;  patter  of  feet,  502;  raps, 
498;  Ruth,  565;  Sabrina,  506; 
Sis,  497,  499;  thought  transfer- 
ence, 249;  VaUiere,  Andr6,  509; 

W ,  509,  510;  Whiskers,  509; 

'William,  George,  509. 

Thaw,   Beatrice,  499. 

Thaw,  Grace,  504. 

Thaw,  Harry,  508. 

Thaw,  Margaret,  496,  497,  508, 
508,  565. 


Thaw,  Ruth,  496,  497,  508, 
508,  565. 

Thaw  sittings,  496,  523. 

Thaw,  W ,  510,  511. 

Theodora,  439,  753,  754,  758. 

Theology  and  persecution,  74, 
76. 

Theophilus,  Moses,  W.  Stain- 
ton,  342,  352. 

There  Are  No  Dead  (Meiss- 
ner),  261. 

Thomas,   Uncle,  797. 

Thompson,  Mrs.  Edmond,  602; 
A,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  603;  Benson, 
Mrs.,  622;  Cartwright,  Mrs.,  606; 
character  of,  605;  Clare,  603; 
cross  correspondence,  763,  766; 
crystals,  sentences  in,  603;  D, 
Mr.,  607,  616;  elongations,  603; 
Elsie,  606,  610;  flowers  distrib- 
uted by  spirits,  603;  Healy,  G. 
P.  A.,  619,  620;  Henry,  Long, 
619;  Dr.  Hodgson  on,  604;  in- 
dividuality of  controls,  607;  in- 
timacies and  veridicities,  631; 
iodoform,  smell  of,  613;  Line, 
Elsie,  610;  Lodge,  Sir  Oliver  J., 
on,  605,  629;  materialization,  603; 
Moutonnier,  Professor  C.,  618; 
Moutonnier,  Marie,  619,  620; 
Myers,  F.  W.  H.  on,  602,  605; 
Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  calling  for, 
645,  646;  Myers  control,  637, 
644;  Nelly  quite  different  from, 
616;  Nelly,  conversations  with, 
617;  Percival  control,  622;  Pid- 
dington,  G.  P.,  on,  605;  Pidding- 
ton,  J.  G.,  teloptic  visions  of, 
617;  prayer  heard  by  spirits,  634, 
644;  pricking  sensation,  603; 
psychometry,  615;  Sidgwick,  Pro- 
fessor Henry,  616,  622;  suicide, 
611;  telepathy,  605;  Thurston, 
Nelly,  603;  trances  of,  604;  van 
Eeden,  Dr.,  on,  605;  velp,  612; 
veridicities  and  intimacies,  631; 
Verrall,  Mrs.  M.  de  G.  on,  605; 
writing  seen  on  walls,  602.  See 
alto  JOSEPH  MARBLE  and  NELLY 
THOMPSON. 

Thompson,  Edwin,  445,  749, 
753,  756,  757. 

Thompson,  Isaac  C.,  435,  438, 
445;  Agnes,  751,  753;  daughter 


'Glossarial  Index.     Volume  II  "begins  on  page  518.    987 


running  away  from  school,  447; 
death  of,  749;  Eliza-Maria,  445; 
Ike,  445;  mother  of,  440;  at  Pid- 
dington  sitting,  753;  Stevens, 
Charles  E.,  757;  Ted,  439,  445; 
Teddy,  753;  Theodora,  753,  754, 
758. 

Thompson,  Mrs.  Isaac  C.,  329, 
372,  374,  435,  439,  445,  753; 
mother  of,  440. 

Thompson,  Miss  Theodora,  439, 
753,  754,  758. 

Thompson,  Nelly,  603-646; 
Alice,  630;  conversation  with 
Professor  C.  Moutonnier,  618; 
babies,  interest  in,  627;  Bennett, 
E.  B.,  626;  Benson,  Mrs.,  616; 
blue  blouse,  625;  Bobby,  621; 
Clegg,  Miss,  627;  Corner,  Mrs., 
628;  cross  correspondence,  763; 
Cruysbergen,  612;  Dorothy,  621; 
Elliott,  Alice,  631 ;  Gordon,  Miss, 
627;  Grove,  Rupert,  631;  Gurney, 
Edmund,  765;  hair  of,  610;  Hap- 
pyfield,  632;  Hendrik,  611;  Lime- 
stone, Mr.,  632;  Marble,  Joseph, 
630;  materialization,  628;  mental 
questions  not  understood  by,  617; 
Merryfield,  632;  Myers,  F.  W. 
H.,  630,  640,  845,  denied  his 
death,  622;  Percival  sittings, 
765;  on  physical  phenomena,  628; 
Post,  Vrouw,  612;  prophecies  of, 
625;  Sam,  611,  613;  Scott,  Geof- 
frey, 765;  Scott,  Mrs.,  765; 
skepticism  in  spirit  world,  615; 
Stalybridge,  630;  "Stomachs, 
getting  things  out  of  people's," 
621;  suicide  case,  611,  613; 
thought  transference  a  failure 
with,  617;  van  Eeden,  Dr.,  608, 
609,  645;  Velp,  611;  writing, 
heteromatic,  622. 

Thompson,    Ted,    447. 

Thompson,  Theodora,  735,  754, 
758. 

Thomson,  Dr.  William  Hanna, 
mind  and  brain,  317;  soul  and 
body,  21. 

Thomson,  Dr.,  of  Clifton, 
lights,  151;  W.  Stainton  Moses, 
121. 

Thought,  cosmic  inflow  and, 
945;  definition  of,  41;  elements 


of  all,  41;  evolution  of,  43;  germ 
of,  40,  45;  secretion  of:  Cabanis 
on,  32,  34;  and  vibration,  249; 
waves,  237. 

Thought  reading,  240,  244; 
and  communication,  589.  See 
also  COMMUNICATIONS,  HYPNOSIS, 
PSYCHOMETHY,  TELEPATHY, 
THOUGHT  TRANSFERENCE. 

Thought  transference,  245, 
247,  248,  249,  250,  289,  414,  449, 
455,  458,  462;  communicators 
and,  589;  contact  and,  249;  cross 
correspondence  and,  769;  a  fail- 
ure with  Nelly  Thompson,  617; 
at  stances,  414.  See  also  TELEP- 
ATHY, TELOTEEOPATHY,  THOUGHT 
READING. 

Thouvenal,  Dr.,  dowsing,  129. 

Thurston,  F.  W.,  603;  Claire, 
603;  Nellie,  603. 

Thury,  M.,  ectenic  force,  111. 

Ticking  in  a  letter,  142. 

Time  and  space,  in  dream  life, 
882,  895;  God  and,  897;  spirits 
independent  of,  937;  subliminal 
self  superior  to,  896. 

Titanic  disaster,  de  Meissner, 
Mme.  S.  R.,  262. 

Togo,  Admiral,  660. 

Tolstoy,   308. 

Tommy,  812. 

Tompkins,  dowsing,  135; 
for  metals,  130. 

Tongues,  speaking  with,  857. 
See  also  DUTCH,  FRENCH,  GER- 
MAN, GREEK,  ITALIAN,  LANGUAGE, 
LANGUAGES,  LATIN. 

Touch,   sense   of,   22. 

Tout  case,  849. 

Towers,  dowsing,  133. 

Trance,  anesthesia  during,  834; 
approximating  death,  896;  best 
results  during,  151,  152,  180;  con- 
trol putting  medium  into,  433; 
health  and,  319;  hypnotism  and, 
833,  834,  842;  infirmities  overcome 
during,  208;  Mrs.  Piper's,  381, 
400,  401,  457,  635,  834,  improves 
under  Imperator  regime,  527; 
superior  powers  and,  529;  unex- 
pected, 602.  See  alto  HYPNOSIS, 
MEDIUMSHIP. 

Transcendent,    78;    ego,    307, 


988     Glossarial  Index.     Volume  11  "begins  on  page  513. 


309,  312;  universe,  309;  universe, 
speculation  concerning,  79. 

Turner,  J.  M.  W.,  Stillman 
case — Llanthony  Abbey,  367. 

Tuttle,  Hudson,  231,  232,  292; 
Arcana  of  Nature,  231;  ether, 
psychic,  237;  genius,  237;  thought 
waves,  237. 

Tuttle,    John,   hypnotism,   280. 

Umbilical  cord,  spiritual,  557. 

Universe,  evolution  of  the,  50; 
each  organism  has  its  own,  51. 

Unknowable,  the,  77,  78. 

Unknown,  the,  78;  importance 
of,  71,  72;  and  the  spiritual 
world,  78. 

Unveriflable  cases,  effect  as 
evidence,  877. 

Uranus,  556. 

Uva  Ursi,  442. 

Valliere,  Andr£,  509. 

Vanderbilt,  Commodore,  402. 

Vapor,  luminous,  185.  See 
aho  LIGHTS. 

Varieties  of  Religious  Experi- 
ence (James),  86. 

Vaschide  on  sleep,  909. 

Velp,   612. 

"Veni,  vidi,  vici,"  656,  777. 

Venus,  the  planet,  562. 

Verisimilitude,  of  controls, 
529,  744,  873.  See  DRAMATIZA- 
TION, IMPERSONATION. 

Verrall,  Professor  A.  W.,  99, 
452,  672,  681. 

Verrall,  Miss,  cross  correspond- 
ence, 767;  table-tipping,  675. 
See  JUNOT  SITTINGS. 

Verrall,  Mrs.,  M.  de  G.,  99, 
372,  602,  637,  666,  672;  "Antici- 
pations," 684;  Childe  Roland,  683; 
control's  advice  to,  679 ;  cross  cor- 
respondence, 764,  766,  768;  crys- 
tal-gazing, 672,  674;  dreams  and 
communications,  680,  681;  fa- 
tigue after  heteromatic  writing, 
674;  Forbes,  Mrs.,  680;  Forbes, 
Talbot,  766;  Greek,  heteromatic 
writing  in,  673,  680;  Hodgson, 
Dr.  Richard,  731 ;  languages  in 
heteromatic  writing,  675;  Latin, 
heteromatic  writing  in,  673,  678, 
679;  Maidment,  684;  mediumship, 
beginning  of,  861;  Myers  con- 


trol, 637;  planchette,  672,  674; 
prophecy,  684;  punning  in  het- 
eromatic script,  677;  Itawnsley, 
684;  Sidgwick,  Professor,  het- 
eromatic writing,  674;  Smith, 
Mrs.  Dew,  682;  telepathy,  605, 
682,  683;  telepathy  with  Mrs. 
Holland,  650;  Thompson,  Mrs. 
Edmond,  605;  Thompson,  Mrs. 
Edmond,  sittings  with,  615;  Ver- 
rall, Professor,  681,  683;  writing, 
heteromatic,  329,  374,  673,  dis- 
connected words  in,  675,  lan- 
guages in,  673,  675,  678,  679, 
680. 

Vibration,  thought  and,  249. 

Vibrations,  being  and,  32; 
personality  but  individualized 
aggregate  of,  948;  and  percep- 
tion, 9;  a  universe  of,  160.  See 
also  LIFE,  PERSONALITY. 

Vineyard,  Mr.,  communication 
about  property,  264. 

Vision  of  accident,  258;  death 
made  known  by,  259;  transposi- 
tion of  a,  26. 

Visions,  285;  dead,  apparently 
from  the,  265;  distant  persons 
in,  257;  dreams  and,  906;  dreams 
often  mistaken  for,  288;  drug, 
906;  of  the  dying,  288;  hypnotic, 
284;  psychic,  252,  253;  telepathy 
and,  259;  telergy  and,  259. 
See  also  DREAMS. 

Voice  corrects  statement,  257. 

Voices,  187,  191,  240,  257,  261, 
270. 

Voltaire,  dreams  of,  898. 

W.,  Dr.  R.  E.,  494. 

W ,   506,  510. 

Wallace,  Sir  Alfred  Russel, 
100,  544,  864;  dowsing,  132. 

Wallace,  spirit  named,  544. 

Wallack's,  optical  illusions  in 
play  at,  162. 

Walsh,  Albert,  413. 

Walsh,  Mrs.  Kate,  communica- 
tion, 412;  death  of,  announced 
by  Mrs.  Piper,  411. 

Walter,  481,  813. 

Warburton,  Canon  W.,  vision 
of  accident,  258. 

Warner,  Miss,  514,  524. 

Warning,  Colville,  W.  J.,  236. 


Glossarial  Index.    Volume  II  begins  on  page  513. 


989 


Warnings,  290.  See  also 
PROPHECY. 

Washington,    George,   505. 

Water-bottle  and  tumbler 
raised  from  table,  108. 

Waterman,  Edith,  820. 

Watson,  284. 

Weber,  soul  of  the  world,  299. 

Weight  increased  or  decreased 
through  mediumship  of  D.  D. 
Home,  109. 

Weismann  on  soul  and  mat- 
ter, 29. 

Welsh,  John,  786,  810. 

West,  Jim,  634. 

West,  Robert,  415. 

Weygandt,   on  dreams,  907. 

Whiskers,   509. 

Whistling,  146. 

Whitaker,  H.  W.,  dowsing, 
126,  133;  dowsing  for  metals, 
134;  Lawrence,  134;  Mullins, 
John,  126. 

Whitman,  Professor:  on  the 
primary  roots  of  instincts,  39. 

Wilde,  Miss  Hannah,  post- 
humous letter  test  failed,  411, 
593. 

Will  and  the  nervous  system, 
20;  and  dowsing  magnetism, 
136;  information  about  a,  given 
through  Mrs.  Piper:  418. 

William,   435,  445. 

William,  George,  509. 

"  Wilson,"  Miss  E.  G.,  sittings 
with  Mrs.  Piper,  407. 

Wilson,  J.  O.,  602,  610. 

Wilson,  Oregon,  seance  with 
Charles  H.  Foster,  115. 

Wiltse,  Dr.,  clairvoyance  and 
telepathy,  281 ;  speaking  through 
Mrs.  Piper  while  living,  255,  876. 

Wind,  cold:  at  seances,  153, 
185. 

Window,  tclekinetically 
opened,  172. 

Women    as    mediums,    671. 

Wood,  A.  B.,  apparition  of 
Edmund  Dunn,  268. 

Wood,  John,  dowsing,  128. 

Wood,  Miss  May:  dowsing, 
127. 


Words  and  concepts,  43. 

Wordsworth,  Miss:  dowsing, 
127. 

World  of  Dreams  (Ellis),  894. 

World-Soul,  299,  301.  See  also 
SOUL,  COSMIC. 

Writing  direct,  177,  184, 
191,  192,  341;  scripts  vary  in, 
342. 

Writing,  heteromatic,  339f., 
461,  647;  bad  if  communicators 
speak  queerly,  811;  book  per- 
meated with  psychic  aura,  343; 
control  not  always  aware  that 
he  is  doing  it,  461,  622;  discon- 
nected words  in,  675;  fatigue 
after,  344,  674;  Foster,  223; 
hand,  action  of,  461 ;  hand- 
writing of  controls,  348,  349,  350; 
individuality  in,  343;  inspiration 
and,  649;  involuntary  and  not 
at  command,  344;  James,  Pro- 
fessor Wm.,  on,  399;  mediums 
sometimes  conscious  during,  647; 
mirror,  489,  508;  pencil,  change 
of,  662;  reading  during,  344; 
scripts  vary  in,  342;  Sidgwick, 
Professor,  623,  624;  speech  of 
communicator  influences  work  of 
control  in,  811;  talking  and:  at 
same  time,  461,  518,  546;  talking 
or  writing:  control  ignorant  as 
to  whether  he  is,  590;  variations 
in,  236,  342,  461,  651,  661,  674, 
811;  verse  in,  647;  on  walls,  602; 
words  spelt  backwards,  489.  See 
also  AUTOMATISM,  Miss  A.,  FOS- 
TER, Fox,  GUYON,  HOLLAND, 
MOSES,  PIPER,  RAWSON,  RICH- 
MOND, SCOTT,  TERESA,  THOMP- 
SON, VEHRALL. 

Wundt,  on  dreams,  907. 
Wyatt,  Mr.,  thought  transfer- 
ence, 249. 

Wyckoff,  Henry,  413. 
Wynne,  Captain  C.,  levitation, 
201. 

Young,  J.  F.,  dowsing,  137. 
Zoom  agnet  ism,    138,    140,    165, 
182;  animal  magnetism  and,  164; 
and  gravity,  198.     See  ELECTRIC- 
ITY, TELEKINESIS. 


\o3\ 


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'A     001  062  339     5 


